Even though Szabo maintatins that the history of Habsburg naval armaments is of little interest to the miliatry specialist, his article offers several interesting parallels to the history of the Austrian navy in later years. The close connection between Austrian maritime affairs and those of the Habsburg-ruled Italian state of Tuscany under Pietro Leopoldo in the 1770's, was replaced by the dominance in Austrian maritime matters of Venice, whose port and fleet the Habsburgs inherited, first in 1797, and then again in 1814, agter the fall of Napoleon's kingdom of Italy.