For many people, Venice is Italy due to its ancient palaces, gondolas gliding through canals, churches still working after more than a half century since they were built. However, if Venice is Italy, then Murano is glass.
There is something incongruous about this mix of romantic Gothic architecture interspersed with a touch of industry, regardless how old. But then, that fascinating mix is the story of Murano glass.
The glass industry has not changed much since its beginning. Glass is made by heating piles of fine sand into its molten form, glass. Depending on the chemical composition of the glass, it can be made into a wide spectrum of unbelievable colors.
In the studio, glassmakers still use ancient techniques alongside new technology to make glass. Intense heat allows glassmakers to shape globs of fiery, molten, glass into objects of unique artistic beauty. Using blow pipes, hands, and their strength, they shape the molten glass in the glory hole, heating it over and over, until their work is done. 
Making glass is an art that requires very special training, determination, and perseverance. Murano glassmakers have been passing this passion for more than eight hundred years, from one family member to another. In past times, it was forbidden for glass craftsman to leave Murano, in order to preserve the secret of Murano glass. The secrets made Murano, Italy glasswork famous, only affordable to the wealthy. Many objects of breathtaking beauty came from the glassmakers’ furnaces in Murano that now decorate museums and palaces.
Today, Murano glass is accessible to the rest of the world. Small pieces of glass art, or glass jewelry, find their way from Murano, Italy furnaces to shops and galleries, and to the hearts of those who appreciate the beauty of glass.
Image credit: Glen MacLarty
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