"So? Then you know how he struggled for years to solve the secret of making the enamel he had seen on a Saracen cup. Palissy also made some fine old stained glass, although few people seem to know this. Many another Frenchman tried to discover the Venetian's great secret. They sought to bribe our people to tell the process, but without success. Then Colbert, the chief minister under Louis the Fourteenth, wrote the French ambassador at Venice that he must obtain for France some Venetian workmen. The ambassador was upset enough, as you may imagine, when he received the order. He said he could not do it. He dared not. If found out he would be thrown into the sea."
"He ought to have been!" Jean cried. "He would have deserved it."
"I think so too," Uncle Bob agreed.
"It would have been far better for Venice had he been drowned in the Adriatic," Giusippe answered slowly. "But he wasn't. Instead he began cautiously to look about. There are always in the world, señor, men who have no pride in their fatherland and can be bought with money. The next year the ambassador succeeded in bribing eighteen glass-makers to go to France and make mirrors for Versailles, the palace of the French king. And no sooner had these men got well to work and passed the mystery on to the French than Colbert forbade the French people to import any more mirrors from Venice, as mirrors could now be made at home. Some of these early French mirrors are now in the Cluny Museum in France, my father told me. In consequence of the treachery of these workmen Germany also soon learned how to make mirrors, and the fame of the Venetian artisans declined just as the Council had predicted it would. But it will be long before any other country can equal mine in the making of filigree or spun glass. You will, señorita, see much of this beautiful work while you are here in Venice."
"I want to, Giusippe; and I want to get some to take home. May I, Uncle Bob?"
Mr. Cabot nodded.
"Your story is like a fairy tale, Giusippe," said he.
The boy smiled with pleasure.
"It is a wonderful story to me because it is the story of my people. And, señor, there is much more to tell, but I must not weary you. Some of our filigree glass, it is true, became too elaborate to be beautiful. It is simply interesting because it is wonderful that out of glass could be fashioned ships, flowers, fruits, fish, and decorations of all kinds. It shows most delicate workmanship. But the drinking glasses with their fragile stems are really beautiful; and so are the vases and tazzas from white glass with enamel work or filigree of delicately blended colors. It was the Venetians, too, who invented engraved glass, where a design is scratched or cut into the surface with a diamond or steel point of a file. And our mille-fiori glass, which came to us way back from the Egyptians, is another famous variety. This is made from the ends of fancy colored sticks of glass cut off and arranged in a pattern. You will see it in the shops here."
"I think you Venetians are wonderful!" Jean exclaimed.