The History of Venetian Glass Before Murano

When you think of Venetian glass, Murano naturally springs to mind straight away.

And yet, for several centuries, the furnaces were not on the island.

Before 1291, glassmakers worked mainly in Venice, spread across different parts of the city.

The furnaces stood close to homes, warehouses and the canals along which raw materials arrived and finished pieces left for the markets of the Mediterranean.

Glassmaking was already highly developed.

The masters knew the techniques of glassblowing, hot shaping and decoration, skills born from the meeting of the Roman tradition and knowledge from the Byzantine East.

Venice, a crossroads of trade and cultures, had managed to gather and refine this experience.

But there was a problem.

The furnaces ran day and night and reached extremely high temperatures.

In a city built almost entirely of wood, the risk of fire was constant.

The Venetian authorities therefore decided to move all the furnaces to Murano, an island close enough not to disrupt the craftsmen's work, yet separate enough to reduce the dangers to the city.

The decision of 1291 did not mark the beginning of Venetian glassmaking, but a turning point in its history.

By bringing the masters together in one place, the Republic encouraged the rise of a highly specialised centre, where techniques could be perfected and handed down from generation to generation.

From that moment on, the name Murano began to become synonymous with excellence.

Even today, as you stroll through the island's calli, it is hard to imagine that it all began with the experience built up over centuries in Venice's furnaces.

Yet it was precisely that move, decided more than seven hundred years ago, that turned Murano into the world capital of artistic glass.

Visiting Murano means retracing this extraordinary evolution.

Stepping into a furnace and watching the master glassmakers at work helps you understand how an ancient tradition, born in Venice and perfected on the island, still lives on today before visitors' eyes.