<P> The Venetian Arsenal (Italian: Arsenale di Venezia) is a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together in the city of Venice in northern Italy . Owned by the state, the Arsenal was responsible for the bulk of the Venetian republic's naval power during the middle part of the second millennium AD . It was "one of the earliest large - scale industrial enterprises in history". </P> <P> Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republican era . It became the largest industrial complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution, spanning an area of about 45 hectares (110 acres), or about fifteen percent of Venice . Surrounded by a 2 - mile (3.2 km) rampart, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal, building ships that sailed from the city's port . With high walls shielding the Arsenal from public view and guards protecting its perimeter, different areas of the Arsenal each produced a particular prefabricated ship part or other maritime implement, such as munitions, rope, and rigging . These parts could then be assembled into a ship in as little as one day . An exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy, in the Montello hills area of Veneto, provided the Arsenal's wood supply . </P>

What was the purpose of the arsenal in venice