Murano was a commercial port as far
back as the 7th Century, and by the
10th Century it had grown into a prosperous
trading center with its own coins,
police force, and commercial aristocracy.
Then, in 1291, the Venetian Republic
ordered glassmakers to move their
foundries to Murano because the glassworks
represented a fire danger in Venice,
whose buildings were mostly wooden at
the time. It wasn’t long until Murano’s
glassmakers were the leading citizens on
the island. Artisans were granted the right
to wear swords and enjoyed immunity
from prosecution by the notoriously highhanded
Venetian state.
What made Murano’s glassmakers so special?
For one thing, they were the only people
in Europe who knew how to make a mirror.
They also developed or refined
technologies such as crystalline glass, enameled
glass (smalto), glass with threads of
gold (aventurine), multicolored glass (millefiori),
milk glass (lattimo), and imitation
gemstones made of glass. Their virtual
monopoly on quality glass lasted for centuries,
until glassmakers in Northern and
Central Europe introduced new techniques
and fashions around the same time that
colonists were immigrating to the New
World.
