Gouvia

Gouvia

A street in Gouvia with bars and restaurants to serve the tourist market.
Gouvia
Coordinates: 39°41′N 19°43′E / 39.683°N 19.717°E / 39.683; 19.717Coordinates: 39°41′N 19°43′E / 39.683°N 19.717°E / 39.683; 19.717
Country Greece
Administrative region Ionian Islands
Regional unit Corfu
Municipality Corfu
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 • Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Vehicle registration ΚΥ
The Venetian arsenal.

Gouvia is a village and resort situated around Gouvino Bay in Corfu, Greece. It is situated around 8km (5 miles) North of Corfu town.

Gouvias position in a natural harbour made it an ideal location for a shipyard, this was exploited during the Venetian occupation, when they built their arsenal in the village. The remains of it today are notable in the area.

The village has a Greek Orthodox church, names All Saints'. There are many bars, restaurants and tavernas along the main street serving mostly tourists from Northern Europe. There are a number of large hotels and self-catering apartments in the village.

Venetian shipyard

Located near the mouth of the Adriatic Sea, Corfu was a very strategic location for Venice and the Venetians built extensive fortifications to defend the island against incursions. The island was also at the centre of their naval operations in the Levant. As part of their defence plans the Venetians stationed two squadrons in Corfu, one of twenty five galleys, the other of twelve heavy sailing ships. Two Venetian Vice Admirals oversaw the naval operations in Corfu, one for each squadron.[1]

In the aftermath of the second great siege of Corfu by the Ottomans in 1716,[2][3] the Venetians, as part of their reinforcement of the fortifications of Corfu, built the arsenal to service their ships and also stationed their galleys at Govino Bay.[4][5] The arsenal was also used as storage for the Venetian ships.[6]

The shipyard at Gouvia was part of a network of Venetian arsenals and naval stations in Greece, including shipyards in the Aegean Sea, Epirus, the Peloponnese, the Kingdom of Candia (modern Crete) and even Venice itself. Aside from Corfu, such locations in Greece included Methoni, Koroni, Chalkis, Preveza, Chania and Heraklion.[7]

The Gouvia arsenal is in a strategic location well-suited to ship repairs as it was near a forested area and high quality wood was plentiful and easily available for ship maintenance.[5]

The practice of the Venetian captains, who participated in the construction of the arsenal, to inscribe the buildings with their initials and coats of arms, had been documented in the late-18th-century writings of French consul to Corfu Saint-Sauveur.[2]

The arsenal at Gouvia was supposed to be used for ship repairs during the winter after each fleet had returned from their yearly campaign during peacetime.[1][5]

However, the Venetian Senate became alarmed at the prospect of an arsenal in proximity to Venice which could potentially compete with the central arsenal and in order to protect the operations of their local naval facilities, the Senate opted to limit the kind of repair activities undertaken at the Corfu shipyard.[5]

Consequently, the shipyard operations at Gouvia were restricted to basic maintenance such as cleaning and caulking;[1][5] many captains, instead of repairing their damaged ships at the arsenal, chose to sink them.[1]

As time went on, the number of ships being serviced at the location declined,[1] and any further use was officially discontinued with the Treaty of Campo Formio, which was signed on 18 October 1798, marking the end of the Venetian Republic and with it the end of the Venetian period of Corfu, which had lasted for over 400 years.[8]

The surviving arches of the structure have been described as "beautifully boned",[8] "strong" and "impressive",[2] "almost surreal",[9] and "a striking collection of skeletal arches".[10]


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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Frank Giles; Spiro Flamburiari; Fritz Von der Schulenburg (1 September 1994). Corfu: the garden isle. J. Murray in association with the Hellenic Group of Companies Ltd. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-55859-845-4. They were supposed to undertake one campaign a year in peacetime, being repaired in winter at the Gouvia Arsenal. But activity there was confined to careening and basic maintenance; and the number of ships steadily diminished, with many captains scuttling their unseaworthy vessels, while others went off on commercial cruises.
  2. 1 2 3 The Gentleman's Magazine. A. Dodd and A. Smith. 1967. p. 57. The strong arches of that naval establishment seem impressive even to-day; but their career of usefulness was short. The arsenal, in its present form, was not founded till after the great Turkish invasion of 1716, and I copied down on the spot two even later dates from the ruined buildings hard by. One states laconically :ZBM ANNO MDCCL XXVIII. This inscription doubtless preserves the initials of some Venetian "captain of the ships," for those officials built all the works at Govino, and their desire to immortalise themselves by putting their names and escutcheons on the buildings is specially mentioned by the French consul Saint-Sauveur at the end of the eighteenth century.
  3. ↑ The Gentleman's Magazine-via Internet Archive: "The Gentleman's Magazine Volume CCXCVII. JULY TO DECEMBER 1904". 297. The Gentleman's Magazine. 1904. p. 57.
  4. ↑ Elizabeth Mary Leveson-Gower Grosvenor Westminster (2d marchioness of) (1842). Narrative of a Yacht Voyage in the Mediterranean: During 1840–41. J. Murray. p. 250.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Lord Michael Pratt (1978). Britain's Greek Empire: Reflections on the History of the Ionian Islands from the Fall of Byzantium. Rex Collings. pp. 36–37. ISBN 978-0-86036-025-4. They were supposed to undertake one campaign a year in peacetime, being repaired in winter at the Gouvia Arsenal. [...] ...was ideally placed, with forests on the mainland affording excellent timber for shipbuilding, but the Senate, anxious about its own Arsenal, confined activity at Gouvia to careening and basic maintenance.
  6. ↑ Larousse Harrap Publishers (January 1989). Greece. Harrap. p. 376. ISBN 978-0-245-54272-5. 5mls (8km): Gouvia where the Venetians stored or repaired their galleys in vaulted boathouses
  7. ↑ Kōstas Damianidēs (1997). Nautikḗ parádosē sto Aigaío: tarsanádes kai skariá. Hypourgeio Aigaiou. p. 26. ή τεχνίτες εργάζονται όμως και στα βενετσιάνικα ναυπηγεία και τους ναυσταθμους στο Αιγαίο (Χανιά, Ηράκλειο, Μεθώνη, Κορώνη, Χαλκίδα, Πρέβεζα και Κέρκυρα) όπως επίσης και στο ναύσταθμο της ίδιας της Βενετίας
  8. 1 2 John Freely (28 April 2008). The Ionian Islands: Corfu, Cephalonia, Ithaka and Beyond. I. B. Tauris, Limited. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-84511-696-5.
  9. ↑ Nick Edwards; John Gill (2003). The Ionian Islands. Rough Guides. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-84353-067-1.
  10. ↑ AA Staff; Gerry Crawshaw; Martin Trelawny (15 January 2007). Essential Corfu. Automobile Association. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-7495-4948-0. At the road end are the remains of a Venetian 'arsenal' or boat-repair yard, a striking collection of skeletal arches with ...
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