ROME. In Italy glass first appears at the very beginning of the Iron Age, in the cemeteries of the Villanova type, naturally in the form of beads and other paste ornaments. Glass bowls and bottles, however, are found in Etruscan tombs, and with the extension of the Roman power the use of glass increased enormously. Not only was glass imported from the old seats of this industry, but the manufacture was intro duced into Italy, and thence into the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Germany. Here, as in Italy, glass and iron had been introduced together, but only ornaments, beads, amulets, etc., were pur chased from traders. Under the favorable con ditions the industry flourished greatly, and glass became so cheap that ordinary cups or platters were sold in of time for a farthing, and in the time of Juvenal and Martial poor ped dlers traded sulphur for broken glass. On the other hand, the expensive and beautiful vessels, according to Pliny, had almost driven out the use of gold and silver. The absence of fine porce lain led to a much more extensive use of glass than in modern times, and the skill of the ancient artists was equal to the production of works scarcely surpassed in later times. In variety of shapes and in some points of technique the Venetians surpassed the ancient Romans; the special merit of the ancient workmen is in the beauty of the coloring and the skill with which the various threads or layers are combined, pro ducing the effect of onyx and agate. The glass was blown, cast, pressed, ground, and cut. It
was used for drinking-cups, flasks, bowls, and other vessels, for mosaics, small ornaments of various kinds, and especially for imitations of precious stones, which in many cases were finely engraved as intaglios or cameos. Two methods of decorating are of special beauty. In one the workman blew the glass in two layers, the inner of a dark color, usually blue, and the outer of white. The outer layer was then cut away on the wheel, leaving the design in white relief on the dark background, as in a cameo. The most fa mous example of this technique is the Portland Vase (q.v.) in the British Museum, though an other fine specimen is in Naples, and fragments are very common. The second method is repre sented by but few specimens, all apparently egg shaped cups without a foot. The vessel is in closed in a network of rings of glass which are attached only by slender filaments to the sur face of the cup. They seem to have been pro duced by cutting away the outer surface of the original vessel, an exceedingly delicate and tedious process, though some authorities hold that the outer network has been applied while soft and worked out with the forceps. See espe cially Friihner, La Verrerie Antique (Le Pecq, 1879), an account of the Charcot Collection, with a full historical introduction and numerous fine colored plates. More popular is Wallace-Dun lop, History of Glass in the Old World (London, 1883).