L’épave de la Mortella III

During the Renaissance, Mediterranean shipbuilding, especially that of the Italian states, was renowned for its quality. But it is still largely unknown today due to tenuous written sources associated with the scarcity of archaeological documentation. The discovery of the wrecks of the Mortella in the Bay of Saint-Florent (Haute-Corse) in 2005-2006 and the excavation of one of them, Mortella III, between 2010 and 2019, contribute to filling these gaps. Identified as the remains of Italian merchant ships, their study sheds new light on a very rich technical culture whose influence on European naval architecture as a whole has been very significant.

The main objective of this archaeological study is to identify the "technical footprints" and "architectural markers" likely to contribute to a first approach to this Mediterranean shipbuilding of the early modern period, through its Italian component. The analysis is based on comparisons with archaeological data from other shipwrecks of the period as well as from written sources. Finally, the documentary research that has linked the wrecks of the Mortella to their history, that of Genoese "navi" sunk during the Italian wars of 1527, allows an original linking of the archaeological study with historical research.

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