The origins: Roman glass
Glass was born in Mesopotamia and Egypt thousands of years before Christ, but it was with the Romans that it became an everyday object. The turning point was the invention of glassblowing, on the Syro-Palestinian coast in the 1st century BC: for the first time, light and inexpensive cups, bottles and unguentaria could be produced in series.
In Italy the great centre was Aquileia, the Adriatic emporium where raw materials and eastern craftsmen landed and from which glass spread across the North: the workshops of the Tenth Region produced the murrine glass of Altinum, the cups signed by the master Ennion kept in Adria, and the grave goods of Este and Iulia Concordia. On the Tyrrhenian side, the necropolis of Albingaunum yielded the famous blue plate of Albenga, while from Pompeii came the absolute masterpiece of cameo glass: the Blue Vase.
Murano and the Venetian Republic
In 1291 the Republic of Venice ordered the furnaces to be moved out of the city to protect it from fire: thus was born the monopoly of Murano, where the art of glass became a state secret. The masters enjoyed extraordinary privileges — but they were not allowed to leave the lagoon.
In the mid-fifteenth century Angelo Barovier perfected Venetian cristallo, a glass so pure and colourless that it conquered the courts of all Europe. Then came the lattimo glass imitating porcelain, the filigree of the sixteenth century, the mirrors, and the great flowering chandeliers of the eighteenth. After the crisis that followed the fall of the Republic (1797), Murano glass was reborn in the nineteenth century: in 1861 the abbot Vincenzo Zanetti founded the museum that is today the Murano Glass Museum, the starting point for the rediscovery of the ancient techniques.
Altare and the diaspora of the masters
The other historic capital of Italian glass is Altare, in the Ligurian hinterland, where the art has been documented since the Middle Ages. Here the strategy was the opposite of Venice's: the Altarese masters emigrated freely and spread their techniques across Europe — the façon d'Altare — founding glassworks in France, Flanders and beyond. In 1856 the community organised itself into the Società Artistico-Vetraria, one of Italy's first cooperatives, whose story is told in the museum at Villa Rosa.
Tuscany: green glass and crystal
In Tuscany, glass is a story of valleys and workshops. In the Valdelsa the "bicchierai" — glass tumbler makers — were active from the thirteenth century: the pre-industrial furnaces of Gambassi Terme have yielded thousands of finds documenting centuries of everyday production. In Empoli glass took on the colour of the local iron-rich sands: this is the green glass of flasks and demijohns, the protagonist of an industry that accompanied the town into the twentieth century.
In Colle di Val d'Elsa the medieval tradition turned, in the nineteenth century, into the "half-crystal" industry and, from 1963, into the production of true lead crystal: today about 95% of Italian crystal comes from this Tuscan town. In Montalcino, finally, a castle preserves the history of glass from a special angle: that of the bottle.
The factories of the modern age
Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, glass became industry. In 1759 the Royal Glass and Crystal Works was founded at Chiusa di Pesio, the most important glasshouse of the Savoyard states. In the Dolomites, from 1805 to 1888, the old Carisolo glassworks produced Bohemian-style crystal thanks to craftsmen from Bohemia, Alsace and Lorraine. In Umbria the furnace of Piegaro, of medieval origin, worked until 1968: today the museum still preserves the last glass left in the extinguished furnace.
The twentieth century: from art glass to design
In the twentieth century Murano returned to the centre of the world stage: the historic glassworks and new protagonists — Venini above all — invited artists and architects to design glass, from Carlo Scarpa to Gio Ponti. Techniques such as sommerso and incalmo became a language of Italian design, celebrated in the Biennali and in museums around the world.
That season is told today in Venice by Le Stanze del Vetro, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, with two major exhibitions a year devoted to the glass art of the 20th and 21st centuries. And the tradition continues: in 2020 the art of Venetian glass beads was inscribed by UNESCO among the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Where to see all this
Every chapter of this story has a place that preserves it: the museum catalogue gathers them all, with maps, opening hours and visiting information. To plan a themed trip, see the glass itineraries.