Glass in Venice

Young Lorenzo, a thirteenth-century Venetian, has decided to become a master glassmaker. To do so, he must spend at least eight years in the workshops of a nearby island and immerse himself in all the secrets of glassmaking, melting, and coloring. Once he has mastered the trade, messer Lorenzo will have certain privileges over his neighbors because he will be an expert in the trade: he will be able to administer justice, use a sword, elect civil authorities, mint coins and even marry his daughters to the nobles of the great city.

With a colorless, very ductile, and transparent glass, the master blowers of Murano refined their processing methods to create very complicated utilitarian pieces of capricious shapes. They succeeded in adding very fine strands of opaque glass to the transparent glass to give the appearance of lace and thus decorate plates, glasses, and vessels. They also used enamels, pearls, and gold or silver filigree in a demonstration of virtuosity far from today’s minimalist taste.

The importance of glass manufacturing in Venice was such that it became the largest production and distribution centre in the West thanks to its geographical position in the Mediterranean and its trade with Eastern civilizations. Do you remember Marco Polo?

The Most Serene Republic of Venice protected its profitable glass industry with very strict rules, both in its manufacture and in the dissemination of its knowledge. To avoid fires, which had broken out more than once in the city, it was decided to build the smelting furnaces in an isolated location. The neighboring Murano – a small island three kilometers away – was the perfect place. There, their manufacturing methods were well protected and the Giustizieri applied severe penalties to anyone who wanted to share their knowledge outside the Republic. Traveling and settling in another country as a glassmaker could cost one’s life. To prevent the leakage of knowledge, they used tactics similar to those we see in films about the Mafia and its hired thugs.

Other manufacturing centers want to compete in that productive trade and it seems a good option to steal those methods kept under lock and key. But secrets don’t stay hidden forever. On the one hand, the glassmakers’ guild established increasingly rigorous controls and cryptic formulas; on the other hand, the competition set in motion its networks of espionage and counter-intelligence.

Despite threats and punishments, some Venetian maestros managed to escape to other cities in Italy and beyond. The exchange of experiences will quickly lead to the development, not only of the luxury glass industry in the “Venetian way”, but in all areas of science. From a bird’s eye view, we can see advances in optics – lenses and telescopes -, in chemistry, test and distillation tubes for laboratories; electricity and conductivity, in physics; microscopes, and potion bottles, in medicine. Advances in food preservation are even beginning to be made possible by the use of corks in bottles.