Size of Venice's merchant galleys 1318-1559
roughly 2.5 times the carrying capacity of the ships used in the early 1300s. Larger dimensions did facilitate this, but ships were also designed in such a way that space was more effectively utilized for storage, fewer oarsmen were needed, and their structures could bear heavier loads.
Between 1318 and 1559, Venetian merchant galleys grew larger in terms of size and carrying capacity, during a period of significant innovation in shipbuilding technologies. While the dimensions of the ships increased by just a few meters in length, breadth, and depth, galleys built in the 1550s had