that it served no useful purpose, but that the construction is a survival from the manufacture of vessels with fondi d’oro. The bases containing the embedded gold leaf must have been welded to the vessels to which they belonged, in the same way as the bases are welded to the Saracenic beakers. The enamelling process was probably introduced in the early part of the 13th century; most of the enamelled mosque lamps belong to the 14th century.
Venetian Glass.—Whether refugees from Padua, Aquileia or other Italian cities carried the art to the lagoons of Venice in the 5th century, or whether it was learnt from the Greeks of Constantinople at a much later date, has been a disputed question. It would appear not improbable that the former was the case, for it must be remembered that articles formed of glass were in the later days of Roman civilization in constant daily use, and that the making of glass was carried on, not as now in large establishments, but by artisans working on a small scale. It seems certain that some knowledge of the art was preserved in France, in Germany and in Spain, and it seems improbable that it should have been lost in that archipelago, where the traditions of ancient civilization must have been better preserved than in almost any other place. In 523 Cassiodorus writes of the “innumerosa navigia” belonging to Venice, and where trade is active there is always a probability that manufactures will flourish. However this may be, the earliest positive evidence of the existence at Venice of a worker in glass would seem to be the mention of Petrus Flavianus, phiolarius, in the ducale of Vitale Falier in the year 1090. In 1224 twenty-nine persons are mentioned as friolari (i.e. phiolari), and in the same century “mariegole,” or codes of trade regulations, were drawn up (Monografia della vetraria Veneziana e Muranese, p. 219). The manufacture had then no doubt attained considerable proportions: in 1268 the glass-workers became an incorporated body; in their processions they exhibited decanters, scent-bottles and the like; in 1279 they made, among other things, weights and measures. In the latter part of this century the glass-houses were almost entirely transferred to Murano. Thenceforward the manufacture continued to grow in importance; glass vessels were made in large quantities, as well as glass for windows. The earliest example which has as yet been described—a cup of blue glass, enamelled and gilt—is, however, not earlier than about 1440. A good many other examples have been preserved which may be assigned to the same century: the earlier of these bear a resemblance in form to the vessels of silver made in the west of Europe; in the later an imitation of classical forms becomes apparent. Enamel and gilding were freely used, in imitation no doubt of the much-admired vessels brought from Damascus. Dillon has pointed out that the process of enamelling had probably been derived from Syria, with which country Venice had considerable commercial intercourse. Many of the ornamental processes which we admire in Venetian glass were already in use in this century, as that of mille fiori, and the beautiful kind of glass known as “vitro di trina” or lace glass. An elaborate account of the processes of making the vitro di trina and the vasi a reticelli (Plate I., fig. 7) is given in Bontemps’s Guide du verrier, pp. 602-612. Many of the examples of these processes exhibit surprising skill and taste, and are among the most beautiful objects produced at the Venetian furnaces. That peculiar kind of glass usually called schmelz, an imperfect imitation of calcedony, was also made at Venice in the 15th century. Avanturine glass, that in which numerous small particles of copper are diffused through a transparent yellowish or brownish mass, was not invented until about 1600.
The peculiar merits of the Venetian manufacture are the elegance of form and the surprising lightness and thinness of the substance of the vessels produced. The highest perfection with regard both to form and decoration was reached in the 16th century; subsequently the Venetian workmen somewhat abused their skill by giving extravagant forms to vessels, making drinking glasses in the forms of ships, lions, birds, whales and the like.
Besides the making of vessels of all kinds the factories of Murano had for a long period almost an entire monopoly of two other branches of the art—the making of mirrors and of beads. Attempts to make mirrors of glass were made as early as A.D. 1317, but even in the 16th century mirrors of steel were still in use. To make a really good mirror of glass two things are required—a plate free from bubbles and striae, and a method of applying a film of metal with a uniform bright surface free from defects. The principle of applying metallic films to glass seems to have been known to the Romans and even to the Egyptians, and is mentioned by Alexander Neckam in the 12th century, but it would appear that it was not until the 16th century that the process of “silvering” mirrors by the use of an amalgam of tin and mercury had been perfected. During the 16th and 17th centuries Venice exported a prodigious quantity of mirrors, but France and England gradually acquired knowledge and skill in the art, and in 1772 only one glass-house at Murano continued to make mirrors.
The making of beads was probably practised at Venice from a very early period, but the earliest documentary evidence bearing on the subject does not appear to be of earlier date than the 14th century, when prohibitions were directed against those who made of glass such objects as were usually made of crystal or other hard stones. In the 16th century it had become a trade of great importance, and about 1764 twenty-two furnaces were employed in the production of beads. Towards the end of the same century from 600 to 1000 workmen were, it is stated, employed on one branch of the art, that of ornamenting beads by the help of the blow-pipe. A very great variety of patterns was produced; a tariff of the year 1800 contains an enumeration of 562 species and a vast number of sub-species.
The efforts made in France, Germany and England, in the 17th and 18th centuries, to improve the manufacture of glass in those countries had a very injurious effect on the industry of Murano. The invention of colourless Bohemian glass brought in its train the practice of cutting glass, a method of ornamentation for which Venetian glass, from its thinness, was ill adapted. One remarkable man, Giuseppe Briati, exerted himself, with much success, both in working in the old Venetian method and also in imitating the new fashions invented in Bohemia. He was especially successful in making vases and circular dishes of vitro di trina; one of the latter in the Correr collection at Venice, believed to have been made in his glass-house, measures 55 centimetres (nearly 23 in.) in diameter. The vases made by him are as elegant in form as the best of the Cinquecento period, but may perhaps be distinguished by the superior purity and brilliancy of the glass. He also made with great taste and skill large lustres and mirrors with frames of glass ornamented either in intaglio or with foliage of various colours. He obtained a knowledge of the methods of working practised in Bohemia by disguising himself as a porter, and thus worked for three years in a Bohemian glass-house. In 1736 he obtained a patent at Venice to manufacture glass in the Bohemian manner. He died in 1772.
The fall of the republic was accompanied by interruption of trade and decay of manufacture, and in the last years of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century the glass-making of Murano was at a very low ebb. In the year 1838 Signor Bussolin revived several of the ancient processes of glass-working, and this revival was carried on by C. Pietro Biguglia in 1845, and by others, and later by Salviati, to whose successful efforts the modern renaissance of Venetian art glass is principally due.
The fame of Venice in glass-making so completely eclipsed that of other Italian cities that it is difficult to learn much respecting their progress in the art. Hartshorne and Dillon have drawn attention to the important part played by the little Ligurian town, Altare, as a centre from which glass-workers migrated to all parts of Europe. It is said that the glass industry was established at Altare, in the 11th century, by French craftsmen. In the 14th century Muranese glass-workers settled there and developed the industry. It appears that as early as 1295 furnaces had been established at Treviso, Vicenza,
