In the highly sensitive issue of water control, we see again a mixture of defensive military concerns, and completely unreliable local resources, revealed in grain provisioning as well. In 1589, the General Captain of the Infantry , Giovanni Battista del Monte, undertook to visit all the fortresses and squares of Candia  by order of Doge  Pasquale Cicogna, in order to make evaluations and prescribe measures. He commented upon its shortcomings, remarking that 'coming upon the city of Candia... it lacks water, a very serious shortage in my opinion and worthy of very principal remedy'¹. The most enterprising Venetian landowners and citizens of Candia were compelled to join together to solve this problem in a grand renewal scheme: 'I judge it very necessary to undertake, while we have the time, to make public cisterns near the quarters and force all the nobles both Venetians and Cretans and the citizens who have good houses, to make one or two according to the resources of each, both for their own good, and to assist the poor, for if this continues they will soon be reduced to very severe misery'². Several crucial features in this regard were the reforms proposed by Benedetto Moro in 1600, and the cistern designed by Francesco Basilicata in 1627.

Footnotes:
1 'Venendo sopra la città di Candia... manca d'acqua, mancamento per openion mia grandissimo et degno di principalissimo rimedio'
2 'giudico necessarissimo per provedergli, mentre ne habbiamo il tempo con fabrecar cisterne publice vicino a li quartieri, et stringere tuti li nobili sì veneti come cretesi et li citadini che hanno buone case, che tutti debbiano farne una o due secondo la possibilità di ciascuno sì per il beneficio particolare, come per potterne sovvenire la povertà, che per tal diretto si riduria presto in grandissima miseria'