2009) L'Arsenale di Venezia. Storia di una grande struttura urbana (Venice: Cicero Editore), xiv þ 328 pp., ISBN 9788889632130, e44.00, hard coverThis new publication of Giorgio Bellavitis's classic work, L'Arsenale di Venezia, offers a broad audience access to an essential text about the history of this shipyard. First published in 1983, this book -together with Ennio Concina's book L'arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia, published the following yearconstitutes a basic reference work and one of the fundamental studies of the great public shipyard.Giorgio Bellavitis's book is a study of the history and the architecture of this imposing urban complex, from its foundation, sometime between the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth century, up to and including the 1970s. Bellavitis, an architect and historian, offers a technical exploration of the development of the shipyard. By studying the phenomenon over the long term, he proposes an analysis of the historical, political, architectural, and technical events underlying a space that represents a crucial element in the city of Venice and its history. In Bellavitis's view, the Arsenale was one of the three centers in the city that, along with Rialto and San Marco, 'constituted a logistical triad, fundamental to the urban structure of Venice, during the time of the Serenissima'. The book is based on a synthesis of a number of studies devoted to the subject and draws on a variety of sources. Another valuable aspect, moreover, are the numerous photographs, the reproductions of archival sources, the archaeological finds, the paintings and drawings, the prints, the maps, both antique and modern, which serve both as illustrations and as research materials.The decision to consider this site over the long term makes it possible to understand how it interacted with the city as a whole and its space, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Of course, more recent studies have shed new light on the individual periods under consideration. Taken overall, however, Bellavitis's book continues to provide a useful view of the equilibrium and relations between the shipyard and the city. From one period to the next, the central problem remains the nature of the interaction between military and civil concerns in a city-state in which the control of the fleet and the ship-building industry were essential political problems. The study also highlights specific Venetian ways of managing the equilibrium between sea and land, lagoon and Adriatic, interior and exterior.