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The Gondola is the only craft in the world with a size of more than 11mt and a weight of more than 500Kg that can be easily steered by just one person with one oar. It turned soon, through the centuries, into the real symbol of Venice. Still today, gondolas are entirely built in the squeri, small boatyards where tradition conveys from father to son, from the Maestro to the apprentice.

At the Cantiere dei Rossi, all of the work follows the ancient techniques of the old venetian squeri. During the Venetian Republic, the squeri were used throughout the city but, nowadays, there are just a few workshops working like that: Cantiere dei Rossi is one of them. The traditional squero is a made of a wooden structure to protect the work in progress from weather and it’s open on both sides. The tesa is the working area where you can find all of the necessary tools. The squero has also an inclined surface to the direction of the canal, so to make easier the messa a secco and the inauguration of the boats. Originally, the squero was used to build and recover any boats of any sizes, untile the galee, the ancient war boats but, while the Arsenale was growing up through the years, the squeri turned into areas to build only small boats, for private clients. There are some hints about the origin of this word squero: the most accredited version says that squero comes from squara, the set square, a fundamental tool to draw and developing projects.