The Royal Shipyards of Barcelona in the modern era.

La gran fábrica de galeras de la Monarquía Hispánica (siglos XVI-XVIII)

For more than two years, the Barcelona Maritime Museum promoted a research project on the Royal Shipyards in the modern era, a period that is not very well known but essential for understanding the history of the Royal Shipyards of Barcelona. In the course of the research, researchers have located a lot of documentation preserved in various files on the arsenal, many of these documents had not been analysed for the historical study of the Shipyards until now. This research was carried out with the collaboration of the Fundació Suport Museu Marítim i Drassanes Reials de Barcelona.

The result was Las Reales Atarazanas de Barcelona en la Edad Moderna. La gran fábrica de galeras de la Monarquía Hispánica (siglos XVI-XVIII), a 400 page text that analyses the role of the Royal Shipyards of Barcelona within the defensive system of the Hispanic monarchy, the operation of the institution, the management carried out by the people in charge, the relationships between the various powers that interacted in the Royal Shipyards, how the production activity was organised, how the constructions were financed, how the wood was supplied, which professionals worked there, trades, qualifications, salaries, problems that arose in the work environment, the constructions, quantity and type of galleys and other vessels, the quality of these, all together amounts to a large quantity of unpublished information.

It was decided to publish it in digital format to provide a more extensive and rapid dissemination, with the aim of furthering knowledge of the Royal Shipyards as a building and as an institution, and the impact of all its activity on the city and the country, and also to promote interest in the study of this subject among other researchers covering this period.

Access the digital publication Las Reales Atarazanas de Barcelona en la edad moderna. La gran fábrica de galeras de la monarquía hispánica (siglos XVI-XVIII). (Version only in Spanish)