The History of Venetian Glass
Since ancient times man has paid an almost mystic attention to glass, attributing something magical and supernatural to this transparent material. Magicians of legend could predict the future by gazing into a crystal sphere and chemists and alchemists studied prisms in search of a stone which would turn metal into gold. Like the fire that gave life to the popular belief of the Phoenix - the mythological bird with the golden plumes - glass became synonymous with beauty.
Even now, for the visitors who come to Venice, the same scenes which inspired writers and legends are represented. The furnace structures have remained largely unaltered over time and new technology is rarely found. All this is because of the attachment the master glass-blowers have towards tradition. They seem to have frozen in time over more than a thousand years of history. Glass masters can be found using the same glassblowing pipes and tools which were forged in machine shops on the islands hundreds of years ago.
The origins of the art of glass-blowing in Venice dates back to before the first millennium. This is confirmed by a document written by a Benedict monk named Domenico who manufactured phials for use in the home. There is no certainty as to the shapes of these phials since not one, neither whole nor in pieces, has survived to this day. We can only hypothesize as to the size and shape of these phials from contemporary documents. The technique used to make the phials was that of blowing into glass using the same instruments Roman glassblowers had invented before passing them down through the ages. It is presumed that later the technique was refined in Venice more than anywhere else in Europe because of the trading contacts the Venetians had with the Orient and with peoples that had an ancient tradition in glassblowing such as the Syrians and the Egyptians. Such traditions, maintained in the celebrated furnaces of Islam, provided an opportunity to combine both Western and Oriental knowledge and techniques thereby giving Venetian production a uniqueness that has made their glass so important throughout the world.
Today Venetian glass production is at it's pinnacle, and it is world renowned for it's quality and form.
