Large and small Shipyards

Shipbuilding is the ancestral tradition of Venice, it was responsible for the bulk of Venice Republic's naval power during its eleven centuries of history, untill the 18th Century, and it is, still now, an important part of the economy of the City.

During the 12th century, the Republic of Venice started the construction of the Arsenal, a complex of state-owned shipyards and armories clustered together, it became the largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution, spanning an area of about fifteen percent of the City.

The Venetian Arsenal's ability to mass-produce galleys on an assembly-line process was unique for its time, based on a process of optimization of the production, due to the high level of standaridization of the parts.

The historic large shipyard "Ernesto Breda", founded in 1917, built war ships like corvettes and minesweepers, after the acquisition by Fincantieri in 1984, it started to produce large cruise ships, eg. for Costa and Carnival, and today it holds an important market share, employing over 1000 employees.

The yacht building, both traditional and modern, counts on around 300 Small-Medium Enterpriese with an extimated amount of 2500 employees.