Stringent rules to regulate the loading of vessels.
Every merchant ship, by the laws in force among
the Italian republics, was subject to prescribed rules
to prevent them from being overladen. When
launched, two experienced inspectors measured the
ship's capacity, and, in conformity, marked upon her
sides a line which it was forbidden to submerge.
At Venice this mark consisted of a cross painted or
carved, or formed with two plates of iron. The
ships of Genoa had a triple mark of three small
plates of iron fastened upon a particular line on each
side of the hull, indicating a limit in depth which
was not to be exceeded; while, in Sardinia, the centre
of a painted ring marked the extent of the immersion
allowed by law. The laws, also, prescribed many
other details in the loading of the ship and in the
stowage of her cargo, which, during the whole period
of the middle ages, were enforced with the utmost
rigour.
