Venetian mirrors

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Alongside a consistently high quality commercial production Fabbrica Lampadari Murano is dedicated to the design and creation of unique works, presented on several occasions on various blogs in the sector or exhibited in important villas, which have made this production of Venetian mirrors and related spare parts in Murano glass famous.

In the 8.000th century, Murano had around 124.425 inhabitants, various privileges, from tax exemption to the authorization to marry noble girls, sumptuous palaces, churches and a per capita income of €XNUMX (calculated to date).

But where did all this wealth come from on a small island that initially lived exclusively from fishing?

From the ability of the Serenissima to preserve and prevent with all available means that the secrets of glass production were taken off the island, almost an hour by boat from the centre of Venice and from where they were transferred as early as 1291, due to the continuous fires, the factories and the glassmakers' guild.

Today as yesterday, the economy of Murano has to deal with many problems, but the most important is foreign competition, China and Romania today, Bohemia and France yesterday.

The Republic retained the artisans, attracted by the offers of foreign powers who fought over them at a high price, showering them with privileges.

But if anyone was flattered by the riches offered, the Serenissima knew how to remedy the situation, as we will see later.

But how much wealth did this art produce?

To understand this, let's start from the "gold ducat": eight million gold ducats was the "turnover" of Murano glass.

Doing some calculations, eight million ducats multiplied by 3,5 grams of gold (the weight of the Ducat) = 28 million grams which at the current price corresponds to approximately €995 million. If we divide the Ducats by the 8.000 inhabitants, it is €124.425 per inhabitant. Today the same sector invoices approximately 120/130 million euros per year (source Confindustria) and Murano has 5.200 inhabitants, doing the same operations we go to €25.000 per person, including children.

Murano had already experienced an initial collapse in the mid-1600s when Ferdinando de' Medici convinced some master glassmakers to open a furnace in Pisa.

The success of this first “export of technology” was at the origin of a small diaspora whose size began to cause concern in Venice. Shortly afterwards, in 1664, Louis XIV set out to realise the project conceived by his trusted architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, to build in his new palace at Versailles, a gallery of unprecedented splendor, the Galerie des Glaces, the Hall of Mirrors.

For this ambitious project, the Sun King gave the order to steal the secret of Venetian mirrors in Murano glass at any cost.

Venice will find itself involved in a real “war of mirrors”.

“In 1665, in Murano, on a rainy night in May, three men are talking in low voices in the shadow of a "sotoportego" (the porticoes in the Venetian language of the time).

Two are dressed in sober dark robes. The third, under a large black cloak, reveals the embroidered sleeve of an elegant tailcoat.

All three look around with long, suspicious glances.

As soon as they are sure that no one is following them, they signal a gondolier who silently approaches and carries them to a boat moored further away.

Everything happens so quickly that the agents of the Council of Ten, in charge of monitoring the island, do not notice anything.

Only the next day, at dawn, will the police of the Serenissima begin to hunt the three in a chase that will take them from Ferrara to Turin and Lyon, without ever managing to stop them. A few days later, the three fugitives will reach Paris.

But who could these mysterious characters be?

The elegant man is a French aristocrat, a spy charged by Louis XIV's powerful Finance Minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, with a secret mission.

His task is not easy, but he has been ordered to complete it at all costs. He must arrange to bring to Paris a small group of Murano glass masters specialized in the production of Venetian mirrors, whom he managed to recruit in Murano.

The two from that night are the first to leave.

It took all his skill to convince them to overcome their fears with amazing promises of money and a good life.”

(Clare Colvin, “The Palace of Reflections” and Il Corbaccio 2004)

Truly amazing promises, knowing that in 1658, the master glassmaker Giovan Domenico Battaggia, hired by Ferdinando de Medici, was found dead for reasons for which there are two official versions. The first is that of the family doctor, a Venetian, according to whom the death was due to "this air of Pisa which in the hot season is terrible and painful". The second, supported by a written confession by Bastian de' Daniel, who speaks of a poison given to him by the Inquisitors of the Serenissima "with which I also killed two other workers, as is now public knowledge in Murano". Whatever the truth about that death, between 1659 and 1660 all the defectors in Tuscany returned to the lagoon. Other similar deaths occurred during the “war of mirrors” and the state inquisitors used every means to recover the fugitives by unleashing spies in Paris, writing false letters from their wives and poisoning those craftsmen who were most reluctant to return to Murano and who produced Venetian mirrors. In 1667 the Venetian ambassador himself went so far as to have two glassmakers from the Serenissima poisoned who had moved with their technological knowledge to the French capital; in the end, the survivors returned to Venice, terrified.

(“The Secret Services of Venice” Paolo Preto, 1994)

Behind this “war”, fought without holds barred, between spies, escapes and poisons, there are always the same reasons: money and power.

The Sun King's minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, had intuited the business that transformed sand into gold coins, so much so that in October 1665 he created the Manufacture royale des Glaces in Paris, which was destined to become the Saint Gobain Manufactory and, the following year, following the instructions of the Murano glassmakers, the first Venetian-style mirror in Murano glass was produced in France.

Until then, Venice had a monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, an amalgam of mercury and tin coated in glass, which made them unique, clear and transparent.

Venice sold them throughout Europe, earning enormous sums.

What figures are we talking about? In France the average price of a Venetian mirror was equivalent to more or less three years of work by a worker and only the richest could afford it. Inventories report that a Murano mirror was valued more than a Raphael painting and it was said that quite a few were willing to sell land and property, just to own one.

For Venice it was a considerable income, for French finances it was a bloodbath.

Colbert's ambitious plan was therefore to break the Venetian monopoly and, by creating a royal factory, to ensure France's primacy in the production of luxury goods, from silks to tapestries to lace.

But there is another reason for the manufacture of mirrors, and one that is not insignificant: the “whim” of the Sun King.

In turn, Venice did not intend to lose a privileged and rapidly expanding market.

Within a few years, Murano experienced “a serious crisis of identity and production, which in turn heralded new massive emigrations that continued throughout the eighteenth century, also involving the production of conterie (lamp-blown beads) and margherite (perforated beads)”.

But where does this crisis come from? From the miscalculation (yesterday as today) that had led some Muranesi to accept the commercial offers of a foreign power, the lure of easy money, exporting their design and teaching some manufacturing secrets.

“Nothing new under the sun” – those who know the origins of the current crisis well would say – but once they had learned these secrets and started production in France, the French dismissed the Murano workers accusing them of being “inconstant, fickle and of bad character”. The defectors then returned home, but their market shares did not.

The French had by now learned to make mirrors themselves and the Galerie des Glaces in the Palace of Versailles was completed in 1682.Gallery of Mirrors

73 meters long, 10,50 meters wide and 12,30 meters high. More than three hundred mirrors form seventeen arched windows overlooking the garden, which are matched by as many false doors that during the day reflect the light coming from outside, eliminating any division between inside and outside. At night, illuminated by thousands of candles, they reverberate the splendor of the furnishings, but also the sparkle of the silks, gold, and precious stones that adorn the sumptuous dresses of the gentlemen and ladies, infinitely multiplying, in a game of illusions, the luxury and wealth of the court.

The Sun King achieved what he wanted.

When he makes his appearance, walking along the long gallery, everyone will be able to recognize, in those innumerable and dazzling reflections of his image, the visible manifestation of his power.

around the mid 1500s, Angelo Barovier created and invented a Murano a type of glass so colorless, transparent and clear and he called it crystal.

This will be one of the best kept and longest-lived secrets of Murano glass making.

The turning point came in 1540: Vincenzo Rador from Venice invented and patented a technique for flattening glass and simultaneously polishing it.

This is how perfectly flat Venetian mirrors in Murano glass are created.