The magic art of

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Murano

The glass was discovered by the Phoenicians, it was brought to by Altino Romans fleeing the Barbarians. His work was one of the best kept secrets of the Venetian Republic over the centuries. It was forbidden for the glass-workers go away from Venice or export the materials to make glass which are mainly silica sand, soda ash and limestone.

The glass was produced throughout the city of Venice until 1291, when it was decided to focus the primary activity in the island of .

The art of glassblowing and work has been developed by the Venetians drawing on the cultures with which they were in contact, learning to achieve the objects needed for daily life in this incredible extremely ductile material.

Being cast vases, bottles ( “fiole” just because resembled the body of the girls), lamps for lighting (represented in the paintings of the great painters of the ), cups, glass for windows, etc. The of the glass, in the tradition, was in 3 stages: during the The glass for its flexibility and, thanks first melting a mass of glass called to the skill of the Venetians had become “fritta”, which was then cooled and one of the basic tools of everyday life. cut to pieces. In the second phase the

Venice has always been characterized “fritta” throw was to blend a second by the glass, Sansovino in 1500 is time with other components, at the enchanted because Venice is the end we had a material ready for only city that meets in which all the processing. After processing, there was houses, even those of the poorest, have the last stage that was the annealing windows with glass. process where the bore in the end the A glass that was blown into rounds cooling of the objects. and then joined to one another with the lead, to then be inserted in the windows

Another capacity developed by the Venetians was to be able to recreate the glass with something similar to the precious Chinese , described by Marco Polo, creating white objects glass (milk glass).

Witness an incredible show thanks to the ability of the Masters of Murano who have handed down from father to son a millennial tradition creating works of art under your eyes. Murano Glass, high The work of all Mastri Vetrai - Master quality production Glassmakers – had to abide by the Mariegole (from the Latin “matricula”), a set of rigid standards which regulated all arts, and professions in the territories of the Venetian Republic. Glass-blowing was arguably the most valued and prestigious profession, and so in 1605 a Libro d’Oro – Golden Book – of master glassmakers was issued to keep a record of the all the craftsmen who practiced the profession and so were worthy of Muranese noblehood. The State decided to start this Book to ensure the secrets of glassmaking never left Murano, and the punishment for betraying or divulging such secrets outside of Venice were extremely severe. To guarantee the quality of , each shop had to receive official authorisation, it could have no more than three furnaces and could only carry out the work at specific times of the year. In the Republic’s heyday there were between 15 and 20 authorised laboratories. Crystal was born in Murano Crystal was one of the most remarkable inventions of Venetian glassmakers during the Renaissance. It was the Barovier family, one of the most renowned among Murano’s Maestri Vetrai, that in 1450 produced the first piece of pure glass, so transparent that it was immediately named ‘crystal’. No one had ever seen or imagined such purity, and the Baroviers were called up by many Italian and foreign royal courts to give demonstrations of their novel techniques.

Glass-blowing Glass-blowing is the typical technique used in Venice, which goes back to the 1st century b.C. It was truly revolutionary in glass production tecnhiques, as it was much faster and it made glass containers easily accessible to all, even to the lower classes of society. The glass-blower blows through a “canna da soffio” – a blowing rod – on one end which allows to model the glass on the other extremity in the shape of a phial. When the blowing is done, the modelled object is broken off from the rod.

Murrina It was the Romans who first created glass vases and bowls, and they did so using sections of glass rods. The objects produced with this technique had a peculiar smell, some believe from the resin used as a binder during the production phase, or more probably because they were used as mhyrre containers or simply perfume containers since the term ‘mhyrre’ is likely linked to myrra, which in Latin means perfume.

This ancient technique was lost during the middle-ages, but it was rediscovered in the late 1800’s at Murano’s Scuola del Vetro; today murrina production is almost exclusively alive in Murano. A is formed by coating one side of a glass slab with alluminium or silver, which, as we know, results in reflecting anything that stands in front of it. The origin of Venetian mirrors goes back to the late middle-ages, as mirrors with metal cladding were already very popular in the 12th century, but it was during the Renaissance that Venice became one of the most important centres for mirror production; and in the flamboyant 1700’s, of course, Venetians made mirrors all the fancier with grandiose frames or by adding unique and decorations directly onto the surface. Back then the most common method of turning glass into a mirror was to simply clad it with a very fine layer of a reflecting metal, usually mercury or tin. It was not until the mid-19th century that a German chemist discovered that the best material for pure reflection was actually silver, and to this day it is silver which is used for making mirrors.

Glazing decorations Murano glass objects were famous for their hand-worked glazing, a technique which came from the Middle-East around the 13th century, and which became widely successful during the Venetian Renaissance. Firstly, what is needed was a mixture of colours from the finely grounded dust of transparent and opaque glass, after which an artist will apply the mixture to create unique decorative motifs by using a thin brush (and great skill). The decorated object is then placed in a furnace, so that the painted glass decorations stick permanently onto the supporting glass surface. Conterie «Conterie» are small glass beads, either round or sharp- edged, which beadmakers produce by sectioning little glass tubes inside the furnace. The glass cane is modelled by the heat of the fire which comes out of a small pipe. Next, the glass is wrapped around a metal tube that gives the bead the shape desired and lastly it is decorated with polichrome glass. Conterie were introduced to Murano glassmaking in the 13th century, also thanks to Marco Polo’s stories of sumptuous palaces and seductive princesses who enjoyed fine such as pearls and bead necklaces. conterie beadmakers hold a series of long thin needles, each attached to a piece of string, and repeatedly pierce the beads with the needles so that the beads run down the string. Although conterie-making is still a vibrant market, decades ago this was a job that kept thousands of women in Venice and Murano busy all-year round. The Ca’ Rezzonico chandelier Giuseppe Briati, an 18th century Venetian glassmaker, defined a special technique famous for producing the so- called Ca’ Rezzonico chandelier. Crystal coloured glass is blown to create long arms subsequently strung together before wedging polichrome leaves and glowers made of glass paste. The result is one of those wonderfully elegant and rich chandeliers which adorn many of the salons in the most beautiful palaces in the world.

Everyday We should not forget that glass was, glass and still is to an extent, used for everyday purposes around the house, such as oil and vinegar containers, table lamps, trays, centre pieces and smaller decorative objects.