An arsenal is an establishment for the construction, repair, receipt, storage and issue of weapons and ammunition. The word arsenal appears in various forms in Romanic languages (from which it has been adopted into Teutonic), i.e. Italian arzanale, Spanish arsenal, etc.; Italian also has arzana and darsena, and Spanish a longer form atarazanal. The word is of Arabic origin, being a corruption of daras-sina'ah, house of trade or manufacture, dar, house, al, the, and sina'ah, trade, manufacture (with jana'a, to make). Such guesses as arx navalis, naval citadel, arx senatus (i.e. of Venice, etc.), have been discounted.
Cannons and mortars of Napoleon's Army exhibited along the wall of the Kremlin Arsenal.
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Cannons and mortars of Napoleon's Army exhibited along the wall of the Kremlin Arsenal.
For the rest of Early Modern Europe, the Arsenal was the Venetian Arsenal.
A first-class arsenal, which can renew the materiel and equipment of a large army, embraces a gun factory, carriage factory, laboratory and small-arms ammunition factory, small-arms factory, harness, saddlery and tent factories, and a powder factory; in addition it must possess great store-houses. In a second-class arsenal the factories would be replaced by workshops. The situation of an arsenal should be governed by strategic considerations. If of the first class, it should be situated at the base of operations and supply, secure from attack, not too near a frontier, and placed so as to draw in readily the resources of the country. The importance of a large arsenal is such that its defences would be on the scale of those of a large fortress.
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