Murano Glass
Is the world renowned glass produced by the glassmakers of Murano, an island off the shore of Venice in Italy.
Venice was a commercial trading port with a history dating back to the 600s and by the 10th Century Venice was famed for its glassmaking. Murano became the leading glass manufacturing centre when, in 1291, the Venetian Republic ordered the glassmakers to leave the main city and move to the islands of Murano, fearing the glass foundries were a fire risk to the mostly wooden buildings of the main city.
Murano rapidly become famed for its glassmakers who produced a unique style of glassware including crystalline glass, glass with threads of gold (aventurine), enamelled glass (smalto), milk glass (lattimo), multicoloured glass (millefiori) and imitation gemstones made of glass.
By the fourteenth century the glassmakers were considered part of the elite and they were allowed privileges such as carrying swords and marrying their daughters to Venetian nobles. However, they were not allowed to leave the Republic on pain of death, since their industrial secrets had to be protected to maintain the Venetian monopoly on this type of glass. However,
In the 18th Century Murano glassmakers extended their wares to include mirrors and chandeliers. Murano glass chandeliers became very sumptuous confections of flowers, fruits and leaves crafted in glass and adorned the palaces of Europe.
Today all manner of artefacts are made in the Murano factories from art glass, chandeliers, sculptures, wine stoppers and glass figurines as well as wide range of tourist souvenirs such as paper weights.
Murano glassmaking techniques are complicated. Most Murano glass art is produced using the lampworking technique, so called because lamps or torches are used to heat the glass into a molten state. It is then shaped by hand tools or by blowing before it hardens. This technique differs from glassblowing which uses a furnace to heat the glass.
Other techniques included layering coloured liquid glass and stretching it into long rods known as ‘murrine’ which are then sliced in cross-sections revealing the famous Murano layered pattern.
‘Millefiori’ is a style of murrine where each different coloured layer of the molten glass is moulded into a star. When cross-sectioned this gives a pattern that has the appearing of lots of flowers – hence the name mille (thousand) fiori (flowers).