ModernShip Project · The structures of the Early Modern Mediterranean shipbuilding
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-05-16 → 2021-05-15
- EU contribution
- €172,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The structures of the Early Modern Mediterranean shipbuilding
Surrounded by millennia of civilisation, the Mediterranean is undoubtedly the cradle of navigation. As a result, its technological development played a major role in the rise of European shipbuilding which, at the dawn of the modern era, was to be a driving force in the construction of Europe. But it remains largely unknown until today. Archaeological research has revealed the coexistence of two different technical cultures at that time: the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. But if, over the last three decades, they have made it possible to sketch out a model of Atlantic shipbuilding, on the Mediterranean side, on the other hand, everything remains to be discovered. However, knowing that the latter is the source of many innovations and technological transfers to the Atlantic, its knowledge is essential to our understanding of the European naval organisation and its role in the development and expansion of European nations. The ModernShip project, ‘The structures of Early Modern Mediterranean Shipbuilding’, aims to highlight this nautical space and its technical culture and to show how it contributed to make the ship an essential tool for Europe construction as a key instrument for trade, war, and discovery and world conquest. From a methodological point of view, the project seeks to approach the description of Mediterranean naval architecture by characterising it in relation to its Atlantic counterpart. It thus intends to highlight a system of shipbuilding in which these two nautical spaces have been in continuous interaction since the Middle Ages, and attempts to understand them in all the complexity of their exchanges and technological transfers.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The knowledge of modern naval architecture reached an important stage in the late 80’s with the first characterization of 16th century Ibero-Atlantic shipbuilding drafted by Thomas Oertling. Together with the contribution made by this work to the definition of an architectural model for the ‘Atlantic’ nautical space, it has paved the way for a better understanding of the spatial organization of shipbuilding, where two quite distinct technical cultures coexist, the first called ""Atlantic"" and the second called ""Mediterranean"". Over the last 30 years, however, little progress has been made in describing these models, particularly the Mediterranean one, due to a lack of wrecks.The discoveries of the wrecks of Mortella (1527,France) and Santiago de Galicia (1597, Spain), both of Mediterranean shipbuilding tradition, together with the discovery of the probable Mediterranean constructive origin of other wreck dated from the 16th c. (Yarmouth Road, UK) change this situation. The prospect of the analysis of this archaeological data in conjunction with that of the two already documented wrecks of Mediterranean origin (Lomellina and Calvi I, 16th c.) opens the way, for the first time, to the draft of a Mediterranean technical model. By comparing it to the Atlantic model, it also enable a first approach to the technical organization of European shipbuilding as a whole.Therefore, the essential objective of my research project is to contribute to the knowledge of these nautical spaces conceived as ""technical spaces"" by prioritizing the study of Mediterranean technical culture, still largely unknown, and to characterize it in relation to its Atlantic counterpart. It eventually aims to understand and highlight a shipbuilding system in which these two nautical spaces have been in continuous interaction since the Middle Ages, and to try to comprehend them in all the complexity of their exchanges and technological transfers.""
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union