48 lines
8.4 KiB
TeX
48 lines
8.4 KiB
TeX
\section{Venice}
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But like a phoenix arising from the ashes, another city in formerly Roman Italy arose to be the next center of glass making\EmDash{}Venice.
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It seems likely that the tradition of glass-making never died out in Italy, especially in the northern Adriatic area around Venice.\footnote{Polak, 53} Yet it was really from the thirteenth century that Italian, and particularly Venetian, glass-making began to influence the whole of Europe. Venice in particular was blessed by a bay that facilitated trade, and by lagoon sand and alkali plants necessary for glassmaking. By 1268 the fiolarii of Venice were apparently organized in a guild, and in 1271 the Capitolare was created: an agreement between the craftsmen, represented by their gastaldo who was elected from among their members, and the Republic's officials for the surveillance of the crafts, I Guistizieri Vechhi. The Capitolare laid down the rules for the workings of the glass-houses: No glass house was to have fewer than three working-holes in their furnaces. These were to be fired with willow or alder. The working year was limited to the seven months from January to August, the rest of the year employed in the making\EmDash{}up of accounts, repairs and so on.
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The Capitolare also set out rules for the sales of products: No glass was to be imported into Venice. The export of products was to be carried out during that part of the year when the furnaces were idle, between August and January.
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The main edifice of the Capitolare of 1271 remained standing for more than five hundred years, in fact until the final formal dissolution of the guilds of the Venetian glassmakers in 1806 with the fall of Venice shortly after Napoleon conquered Italy.\footnote{Polak, 53-54, 66}
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From early times glassblowers from Venice had set up their glass-houses at Murano, a lagoon island situated about five kilometers north of Venice; a rowboat could cover the distance in an hour. By a decree of 1292 the Grand Council of Venice encouraged the removal of all Venetian glass-houses to Murano, where the risks in the case of fire were smaller than in Venice itself. According to some historians, the glassmakers were encouraged to do so because, once established on the island, they were virtual prisoners, so strict were the regulations controlling the glass making industry against 'industrial secrets' becoming known abroad. On pain of death no craftsman could leave Moreno or even teach a resident foreigner any of the trade secrets without express permission\EmDash{}which was seldom given.\footnote{Elville, 61} There are even stories of relentless assassins in pursuit of fleeing glassmakers-in one case, to the very gates of Prague, Czechoslovakia-over 500 km (300 miles) away.\footnote{Zerwick, C., Short History of Glass, p. 50}
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Of course truth and legend are difficult to separate here, but it is safe to say that very harsh measures were involved, since their 'industrial secrets' were of such enormous value. A register of 1454 specified the measures of the guild against fled glassworkers. First he was strongly urged to return, and would receive a full pardon and a job. If he refused, his relatives were thrown into prison. If he still refused, an assassin was assigned. Two cases of murder of this kind are mentioned in Venetian archives, and there were probably more.\footnote{Hannes, 19}
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As if assassins weren't enough, the life of glassmakers wasn't an easy one to begin with. According to a book in 1713:
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\begin{quotation}
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Certainly no one could endure for long the strain of such work as these men have to do, nor could it be kept up except by robust men in the prime of life. During the process of making glass vessels the men stand continually half-naked in freezing winter weather near very hot furnaces and keep their eyes fixed on the fire and molten glass . . . their eyes have to meet the full force of the fire . . . they shrivel because their nature and substance . . . is burnt up and destroyed by the excessive heat.\footnote{Zerwock, History of Glass p. 58 ???}
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\end{quotation}
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By about 1300 the removal of glassmakers from Venice to Murano was more or less complete, and to this day Murano has been the center for Venetian glassmaking.\footnote{Polak, 54} By the end of the sixteenth century, when Venice had about 170,000 inhabitants, Murano had a population of some 7,000, about 3,000 of which are believed to be directly concerned with glassmaking.\footnote{Polak, 56}
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Furthermore, an edict in 1275 forbade the export of sand, alum and glass fragments.\footnote{Hannes, 19}
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By the early fourteenth century Venetian glass production was in full swing, and Venice's vast fleet for war and commerce enabled her to trade as far as England and Flanders.\footnote{Polak, 64} Venice at this time was also ``Queen of the Sea,'' giving her ample facilities for exporting her manufacture to every part of the known world; and for a long period held the monopoly of supplying the cities of Europe with crystal glass.\footnote{Reminisences, 24}
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The destruction of the city of Damascus (a great glass center) by the Mongolian war-lord Timur the Great in 1400 probably led to an influx of craftsmen to Italy, as may also have happened in 1453 when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks.\footnote{Glass, A World History, Macfarlane, p.20}
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One of the main innovations of the Venetian glass-makers was a type of glass called \textit{cristallo}, invented between 1450 and 1460.\footnote{Polak, 58} It could be blown very thin, was colorless and free from flaws, and enabled glass-makers to make wonderfully elegant and intricate forms. Its purity and thinness was an object of fascination and desire.\footnote{Glass, A World History, Macfarlane, p.21}
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Though Venetian control over the glassmakers and their families was strict, these craftsmen were highly regarded. Many were given patrician standing, their daughters being permitted to marry noblemen.\footnote{Zerwick, C., Short History of Glass, p. 50} The government of Venice also conferred the title of ``Gentleman'' (no idle title in those days) on all who became accomplished in the manufacture.\footnote{Reminiscences, 24}
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So important to Venice was the glass-making craft that when Henry III of France visited Venice in 1574, it is said that his ship was greeted by glassblowers borne on a huge raft with a furnace in the shape of a mammoth sea monster spewing flames.\footnote{Zerwick, C., Short History of Glass, p. 50}
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Not surprisingly, this strict secrecy surrounding Venetian glass making would have invested the art with an air of romance; and legends, probably invented for the purpose, created a maximum of wonder to the uninitiated.
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In fact, Venetian glass was so expensive that the modern practice of one glass per guest was actually unheard of as late as the 16th century. There might be only one glass to a table, so ``a man should wipe his mouth on napkin or table-cloth.'' If there was one glass to two guests, ``one should empty every time one drinks so as to leave nothing for his companion'', a situation presumably alleviated by the cup-bearer refilling the glass.\footnote{English Glass, Charleston, 52}
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At about this time, throughout Europe\TODO{???} even window glass was so expensive the glass panes were removed and put in a safe place when the occupants left the house for any time.\footnote{Technics \& Civilization, Mumford, p. 124}
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But with the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the glass art of Murano suffered a swift decline.
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We close this section with an extract from a ``Familiar Letter'' of James Howell, historian to Charles II, written in 1621:
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\begin{quotation}
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Murano, a little island about one mile from Venice, is the place where crystal glass is made, and it is a rare right to see whole streets where on one side there are twenty furnaces at work. They say here, that although one should transfer a furnace from Murano to Venice, or to any of the little assembled islands about here, or to any other part of the earth beside, to use the same materials, the same workmen, the same fuel, and the selfsame ingredients every way, yet they cannot make crystal glass in that perfection for beauty and lustre as at Murano. Some impute it to the circumambient air, which is purified and attenuated by the concurrence of so many fires, that are in these furnaces night and day perpetually, for they are like the vestal fires, never going out.\footnote{Howell, The Familiar Letters of James Howell, May 30, 1621}
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\end{quotation}
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