Palazzo della Ragione

**By an arched timber structure acting as a self-carrying shell — and shipwrights knew how.** ✅ **The problem**: **a hall 27 metres wide** cannot be roofed with straight timber beams — **no tree is long enough to resist the bending**; **the usual answer is a row of columns down the middle**, ⚠ **which this design refused**. ✅ **The solution used**: **building a curved timber «shell»** — a frame of interlaced members forming an inverted arch, **transferring the load sideways into the thick walls** rather than downward into columns. **So the roof works as one coherent structure rather than a series of beams.** ⚠ **The form is familiar**: **it resembles an upturned ship's hull** — ✅ **and that is not only a simile**: **shipbuilding carpentry in Venice and its arsenal was the most advanced in the region**, **and the knowledge crossed into buildings**. ✅ **The present roof dates from 1306**, after **a tornado destroyed the original in 1756 and it was rebuilt** — ⚠ so what you see is repeated survival, not a single one. ✅ **The engineering lesson**: **timber is weak in bending and strong in compression and tension** — **so a successful design converts bending into compression**, which is what an arch does.