The Leon Trionfante class were a class of at least fourteen 70-gun third-rateships of the line[N 2] built by the VenetianArsenale from 1716 to 1785, in four different series with minor changes in the ships' length. In 1797, when Venice fell to the French, Napoleon captured several ships of the class, still unfinished in the Arsenal: he chose one of them, forced the shipbuilders to have it completed and added it to his fleet en route for Egypt. After Campoformio, the remaining vessels were destroyed by the French to avoid their capture by the Austrian Empire.[2]
Design and history
The class was conceived and began construction during the Seventh Ottoman-Venetian War, with the lead ship, Leon Trionfante, laid down on 7 March 1716 and being commissioned on 2 May of the same year.[3] The ship was large for its armament: with a keel length of 43.2 metres (142 ft) it rivalled the British 100-gun first-rateHMS Royal William, although with a width of 13.4 metres (44 ft), it was almost 2 metres (6.6 ft) narrower than the Royal William.[4]
Almost all the ships of this class were planned and started before 1739, completed to a 70%, then stored in the roofed shipbuilding docks of the Arsenal of Venice to be finished and launched when the Venetian Navy need them, a solution the British Royal Navy adopted only in 1810, when the docks at Chatham were covered.
This decision, mostly due to the chronic lack of funds of the Republic of Venice in its final years, led to retain in service older and inferior ships than the ones built at the same time for the British Royal Navy and the French Royal Navy. Moreover, contemporary third rates had heavier guns (32-pounders on the gun deck and 18-pounders on the upper gun deck), even if the armament of those ships could be brought up to 72-74 guns. Except for the Leon Trionfante and the Diligenza, none of this class' ships remained in service for more than fifteen years.
^The guns reported as the main armament of this class' ships are in the Venetian scale, that use the libbra sottile (0,301 kg).
^Even if by contemporary British practice these 70-gun ships should be rated as third rates, for the Venetian Navy the Leon Trionfante class were first rate vessels. This different classification dated back to the previous century, but Venice never changed it for prestige issues.
Candiani, Guido (2009). I Vascelli della Serenissima: Guerra, politica e costruzioni navali a Venezia in età moderna, 1650-1720 (in Italian). Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. ISBN978-88-95996-20-2.
Ercole, Guido (2011). Vascelli e fregate della Serenissima. Trento: GMT. ISBN978-8890565144.
