These workers at Murano had two great advantages,—the material they used was ductile, light, especially brilliant, and possessed of vitreous appearance quite unique; and, added to these important conditions, the workmen had natural good taste, and the immense aid of historical traditions,—and by wisely employing its own resources Murano attained its great reputation; its forms and colors have not been equalled, and that they could be excelled is past imagining.
We know the name of the man who made mosaics for San Marco in 1100. It was Pietro, and he worked for the Doge Vitale Michiele I. In 1268 the glass-workers had formed a corporation. In 1292 they settled permanently on Murano. In 1329 they were employed to furnish glass for churches in other cities; and in 1376 the Senate declared that a master glass-maker might marry the daughter of a noble, and their children be held as of noble rank. It was at this time that the Venetian glass-workers decorated the fine edifices all over Italy, and made the windows for the Cathedral of Milan.
So vast had the industry now become that it was divided into specialties,—the verixelli made small objects and beads; the phioleri made bottles. In the beginning of the fifteenth century Angelo Beroviero had the most famous furnace at Murano, at the sign of the Angel. He made both vessels and windows, and being a learned chemist knew how to give the most varied and beautiful colors to his glass. Beroviero also made the discovery of a process by which to apply enamel to glass in different colors. He made exquisite goblets; and special designs were executed for marriage and birth cups, or for any important occasion. Beroviero reached perfection in his art, and his brothers and sons were never surpassed in enamelled glass. To his son Marino may be ascribed the splendid glass in San Giovanni e Paolo, made after the designs of Girolamo Mocetto in 1473.
In truth, it is to the Berovieri that the progress in glass-making is due. They invented in 1463 that transparent glass called crystal; and giving up the old simplicity of form and decoration, they became bold and even audacious in their work. They used gold and enamel, and made those occasional pieces, now so precious, on which the designs and inscriptions furnish historical scenes from the fifteenth century.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century Andrea Vidaore invented the process of making artificial pearls with the enameller's blow-pipe, and later he invented glass jet, both of which discoveries became very remunerative. In 1507 two Muranese petitioned the Council of Ten for a grant of the monopoly of mirror glass all over the Republic for twenty-five years, and for permission to keep their fires lighted during the two months and a half when all the fires were bound to be extinguished. Prior to this time the method of preparing mirror glass had been known and was used elsewhere; but at Venice the metal plates had been retained. Now, however, began the growth of that enormous industry in mirror plates which has retained its importance even in recent times, and which other nations have tried to appropriate.
The art of cutting glass in facets, and imitating precious stones, as well as of coloring "crystal" glass, was discovered in 1605; and all these inventions brought great wealth to the glass-workers, some of whom purchased nobility for themselves and their descendants.
Through Colbert, France succeeded in competing with Murano. England did the same by aid of the Duke of Buckingham; and Bohemia gave itself up to glass manufacture in such a way that the Venetian industry suffered at the end of the seventeenth century. Giuseppe Briati, a passionate lover of his art, left Murano, and took service in a manufactory at Prague, and having learned the Bohemian secrets, he returned to Venice in 1736, and obtained a license, for ten years, to manufacture and sell crystals made in the Bohemian fashion. Briati established himself in Venice in the Via del Angello Raffaelo. At this period mirrors were framed with flowers and foliage of cut glass, in relief, and lustres were decorated with flowers, grapes, and leaves in brilliant colors. Filigrana (filigree), too, was much in favor; and some of Briati's vases in this style are now very precious on account of their refinement of form and taste. Briati died in 1772, but at Murano his art survived.
In 1790 a license was granted to Giorgio Barbaria to make black bottles for export to England; and soon after he manufactured jet and enamels. Barbaria was the deputy of Murano until the fall of the Republic, when the island became almost a desert, and its master workmen and journeymen sought in other lands the bread they could no longer earn at Murano.
There are many interesting stories and traditions connected with the Berovieri. Angelo, who was the superior of them all, inherited a good business, and by his own discoveries became very rich. He had a large shop in Venice, besides his factory on Murano, from which he shipped immense quantities of glass to various ports in Europe and the Orient. His dwelling was in a part of Murano that was free from the smoke of the furnaces. It was of marble, and very handsome without, while within it was most luxurious and elegant. The garden stretched to the water's edge, and was laid out with much taste. Large trees afforded grateful shade at midday, and spicy odors from the flowers combined with the songs of the nightingales of the aviary in satisfying the senses. There were arbors so sheltered by vines that one could watch the gondolas on the blue waters and be quite unseen, and the lovely view was fitly crowned by the purple mountains in the distance.
Beroviero was fortunate in all the circumstances of his life. His beautiful wife was a wealthy lady of Milan. His son, Marino, was of great promise, and his two daughters were lovely girls, who had inherited their mother's beauty and their father's intellect. But one sorrow had penetrated even here. The eldest, Felicia, from a fall in childhood, had weakened her spine, and was forced to spend much of her life in a recumbent position.