The master shipbuilders of seventeenth-century Venice formed part of what was arguably the greatest manufacturing complex in early modern Europe. As many as three thousand masters, apprentices, and laborers regularly worked in the city's enormous shipyards. Drawing on a variety of documents -- nearly a thousand petitions from the shipbuilders to the Venetian governments, parish records, inventories, and wills -- Robert C. Davis offers a vivid and compelling account of these early modern workers. This social history explores the workers' private and public worlds, uncovers the far-reaching social and cultural role played by women in this industrial community, and shows how the Venetian government formed its shipbuilders into a militia to maintain public order.