Venetian galley routes (mude), c.1200-1500

What you are looking at

The convoy system: the state-organised mude that sailed on regulated schedules to Alexandria, Beirut, Flanders, the Black Sea and Romania, and the private round-ship trades that ran alongside them.

How to read this layer

A line is a relation, not a track. It records that a convoy ran between these harbours in this order. It does not record the course any ship steered, and it will cross headlands and islands that every real voyage went around.

Solid lines are mude; dashed lines are private trades. The distinction is institutional: a muda was auctioned, regulated and scheduled by the Republic, and a private voyage was not.

Historical scope

c.1200 to 1500, phased per feature. The system did not exist all at once, and the slider shows which lines were running when.

Sources and evidence

After Lane 1973, with page-level locators. See the VMN source log.

Reconstruction and uncertainty

The existence and staging sequence of a route are documented. Its frequency varied by decade in ways this layer does not attempt to show, and its geometry is drawn through the staging ports rather than reconstructed from sailing directions.

Reading distance or duration off these lines would be a mistake. The Adriatic leg of a route drawn straight took as long as the weather allowed.

Editorial decisions

Routes pass through their staging ports rather than taking great-circle paths, because the staging ports are the evidence and the water between them is not.

Data fields

route_type drives the dash pattern; every feature carries its validity range and source keys. See the VMN data fields.

Data and downloads

FlatGeobuf under CC BY. Attribution: Terra Chartarum; after Lane.