VENICE. Refugees in Venice made glass as early as the fifth century, the abundance of ex cellent sand and alkaline sea-plants facilitating the industry. Saint Mark's, built in 1159, gave an impetus to mosaic work on the spot, and the taking of Constantinople (1204) drove many Greek workmen to the asylum of Venice, with Byzantine secrets. The interior walls of this church are entirely covered with glass mosaics, representing the principal events of biblical his tory. The work on these mosaics extended over a period of 250 years. The wonderful color effect and beauty of these mosaics have been eloquently described by Ruskin. With the rise of the Italian painters, mural painting took the place of mosaics for wall decoration, and no mosaics of importance were made after the fifteenth cen tury. But in the meantime the Venetians had turned their attention to the production of orna mental glass, and guarded the secrets of its pro duction with the most jealous care. In 1275 the Council of Venice prohibited the exportation of glass materials. The fear of fire abolished the furnaces, in 1291, from Venice proper to the outlying island of Murano, where the artists formed a small republic and have flourished ever since. The fame of Venetian glass-makers led other countries to tempt them away, but the Council of Ten jealously guarded the secrets of Venetian wealth. No stranger could learn the art. Any workman carrying his skill to another country was followed and ordered back. If he refused to come, his relatives were imprisoned. If he persisted, an emissary was dispatched to kill him. A wandering glass-maker called Paoli was tracked to Normandy, where he was stabbed with a dagger on which was written 'Traitor.' But the Venetian police had no power in Murano, And that island had its own codes and magistrates. Nobles gave their daughters in marriage to glass workers, and the children were counted of the nobility. The shops of Murano formed, in 1495, a magnificent street a mile long, where every conceivable object was fashioned. The furnaces were small, a few workmen about each, which explains the diversity of design and the scarcity of pure glass, such as only long fusion in large furnaces can produce; but nowhere in the world could the precious products of Murano be matched. The vases and cups were royal pres ents to every sovereign. Their dishes displaced gold. Many of their wares were in patterns like madrepore coral. Their mille fibre Was a starry mosaic of white threads combined in a blue ground. A favorite style imitated the pulp of an orange. Vitro de trina ware was made of
twisted rods of opaque white in clear glass, and most delicate of all was their latticelli, a lace like network in exquisite designs. They also secured wonderful effects in mosaic, imitation gems, and cameos. All of these were simply repetitions or extensions of wonders done ages before by the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, which had since become lost arts, and all the lightness and wealth of color of ancient glass were exquisitely copied in an endless variety of fantastic forms. Fishes, lions, dragons, etc., were made to assume grotesque effects with the colors of different wines. They blended two sheets of color into one. They invented aventurine and far surpassed their masters in reticulated glass. About 1300 Murano artists conceived of covering plates of glass with an amalgam of tin and mercury, and their mirrors became proverbi ally fine. Marco Polo prompted them to manu facture beads for African trade. These beads be came very popular, and enormous numbers of them were made, so that now, wherever the trade of the Middle Ages penetrated, they may still be found. These beautiful beads contrast strangely with the vulgar and glittering productions that are now made for the similir purpose of trade with African and Indian tribes. In the early fifteenth century Panfilo Castaldi, a Venetian engrosser of deeds, made movable glass types and printed from them, and tradition says that John Faust, his friend, visited his scriptorium. Modern spectacles were invented by Salvino d'Armati, of Florence, according to the state ment on his tombstone (1317). At the beginning of the seventeenth century there were 300 glass houses in Murano, but at the commencement of the nineteenth century all were gone except a small mosaic factory. The art, however, was not Allowed to die out entirely, but was cherished by a few workmen, one of whom, Radi, undertook the work of restoring some of the mosaics at Saint Mark's. Salviati, an Italian lawyer, as sisted in the Radi enterprise, and with the aid of English capital two sets of workshops have been established where ancient methods and objects such as mosaics are skillfully copied, and new and beautiful work is also done. The Venetians excel in glass novelties, such as mirrors, beads, tableware, bric-a-brac, and aventurine. Their glass is very soft so that it can be spun, woven, or otherwise fashioned into the daintiest designs. In the production of a single piece, it is said, the glass may be reheated fifty times.