individuals, as is usually the case when a valuable product is made out of cheap materials by processes which are secret, and therefore have the effect of a monopoly.
As early as the fourteenth century the government had understood the immense importance of the art, and the glass-blowers of Murano were protected and favoured in a most especial way. As in one part of France, a sort of nobility was inherent in the occupation, and an early law sanctioned the marriage of a master
VENICE FROM MURANO
glass-blower’s daughter with a patrician by allowing their children to be entered in the Golden Book.
The glass-works were all established in the island of Murano, as their presence in the city would have caused constant danger of fire at a time when many of the houses were still built of wood, and the whole manufacture was subject to the direct supervision of the Council of Ten, under whose supreme authority Murano governed itself as a separate city, and almost as a separate little republic. Not only were the glass-blowers organised in a number of guilds according to the special
THE DUOMO CAMPANILE, MURANO
branches of the profession, such as bead-making, bottle-blowing, the making of window-panes and of stained glass, each guild having its own ‘mariegola’ or charter; but over these the Muranese had their own Great Council and Golden Book, in which the names of one hundred and seventy-three families were inscribed, and their own Small Council, or Senate. The Ten gave Murano a ‘Podestà,’ but he had not the power which similar officers exercised in the other cities and islands of the Dogato, and it is amusing to see that the people of Murano treated him very much as the Venetians themselves treated their Doge. He was required to be of noble blood; he was obliged by law to spend three days out of four in Murano; he was forbidden to go to Venice when important functions were going on; he could not interfere in any affair without the permission of both the Councils of Murano, and altogether he was much the same sort of figure-head as the Doge himself. On the other hand, Murano supported a sort of consul in Venice with the title of Nuncio, whose business it was to defend the interests of the island before the Venetian government.
Neither the Missier Grande, the chief of the Venetian police, nor the ‘sbirri,’ were allowed to exercise their functions on the island. Offenders were arrested and dealt with by the officers of the Murano government, and were handed over to the Venetian supreme government only in extreme cases, most trials taking place on the island.