The first furnace of the Venice lagoon
03/11/2021
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The types of processing in the production of Murano glass objects are many, deriving from years of experience and learning.
Among the most famous and most used, we certainly mention aventurine, beaten, millefiori and murrina, but some lesser-known processes have just as much charm and a certain degree of difficulty.
We mention some of them recently used in our production
A 16th century process used in Murano to make objects with a core lined with opaque white or colored glass. It was achieved by placing thin rods of clear glass next to rods of the desired color, which traditionally would have been opaque white glass. They are melted together in the furnace and then molded into a cylinder.
After that they can be blown and molded. This process has three additional patterns depending on how the strands are twisted and aligned.
With the half-filigree, rods with only one filament are used. With lattice glass, a diamond-shaped pattern is created by twisting two halves of an object in opposite directions while heating and distorting the straight lines of the filigree rods, creating a diamond mesh pattern.
Finally, the retortolio glass consists of two spirally twisted filaments. All the most important Murano glass factories used this technique.
A technique used to create an almost opaque glass through the inclusion of countless bubbles or puleghe in the glass. This process was invented by Napoleone Martinuzzi in the late 1920s, while he was the artistic director of Venini & C. Bubbles are created by adding salts, usually sodium carbonate or bicarbonate directly into the molten glass. The salt breaks down due to heat, which releases gas in the form of carbon dioxide, which disperses inside the glass forming bubbles, as well as giving the glass an irregular surface structure.
It means submerged. A technique that uses colored threads or small artistic designs which are then dipped in various crucibles of colorless transparent melted glass to form a multi-layered or multicolored effect. Carlo Scarpa was at the forefront of this process for Venini & C. in the mid-1930s. He used gold leaf with a colored glass layer and thick air bubbles to capture in a thick clear glass layer. This technique was quickly picked up by many of the other Murano glass factories.
On a metal plate covered with refractory clay (formerly the mud of the “barena” the muddy bumps that emerge during the low tide in the lagoon) called “piera” the design is created by combining the glass rods cut to size.
The “piera” is heated in such a way that the chopsticks, softening, melt together.
With a blow pipe, a bit of glass is collected from the crucible and the “imbocaura” is created, a kind of disc with which the melted glass rods are collected, thus creating a cylinder.
This cylinder is repeatedly heated and passed on a metal surface called “bronzino” to compact and join the colored glass rods. This cylinder, once closed, will allow the blowing of the object you want to create.
In the composition there are various types of glass rods of different transparent and opaque colors.
There are many processing methods, these were the last ones used in production. Do you want to see others? Visit our online store.
The Murano Glam Artisan Glassware is a reference point for the production and wholesale and retail purchase of original Murano glass objects and works. Maestro Francesco Salvadori specializes in the art of Murano blown glass, a skill handed down from generation to generation.
