Some elucidation of the arrangements that we have tried to describe will be found in our cuts. That at p. _35_ is from a drawing, by the aid of a very imperfect photograph, of part of one of the frescoes of Spinello Aretini in the Municipal Palace at Siena, representing a victory of the Venetians over the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa’s fleet, commanded by his son Otho, in 1176; but no doubt the galleys, &c., are of the artist’s own age, the middle of the 14th century.[14] In this we see plainly the projecting _opera-morta_, and the rowers sitting two to a bench, each with his oar, for these are two-banked. We can also discern the Latin rudder on the quarter. (See this volume, p. 119.) In a picture in the Uffizj, at Florence, of about the same date, by Pietro Laurato (it is in the corridor near the entrance), may be seen a small figure of a galley with the oars also very distinctly coupled.[15] Casoni has engraved, after Cristoforo Canale, a pictorial plan of a Venetian trireme of the 16th century, which shows the arrangement of the oars in _triplets_ very plainly. The following cut has been sketched from an engraving of a picture by Domenico Tintoretto in the Doge’s palace, representing, I believe, the same action (real or imaginary) as Spinello’s fresco, but with the costume and construction of a later date. It shows, however, very plainly, the projecting _opera-morta_ and the arrangement of the oars in fours, issuing through row-ports in high bulwarks. [Illustration: Part of a Sea Fight, after Dom. Tintoretto.] [Sidenote: Fighting Arrangements.] 28. Midships in the mediæval galley a castle was erected, of the width of the ship, and some 20 feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free passage under it and over the benches. At the bow was the battery, consisting of mangonels (see vol. ii. p. 161 _seqq._) and great cross-bows with winding gear,[16] whilst there were shot-ports[17] for smaller cross-bows along the gunnels in the intervals between the benches. Some of the larger galleys had openings to admit horses at the stern, which were closed and caulked for the voyage, being under water when the vessel was at sea.[18] It seems to have been a very usual piece of tactics, in attacking as well as in awaiting attack, to connect a large number of galleys by hawsers, and sometimes also to link the oars together, so as to render it difficult for the enemy to break the line or run aboard. We find this practised by the Genoese on the defensive at the battle of Ayas (_infra_, p. _43_), and it is constantly resorted to by the Catalans in the battles described by Ramon de Muntaner.[19]