A few historical notes
The art of glass was born and prospered in the Venetian lagoon, at the beginning of the 5th century, by the fugitives from the Hunnic and Lombard raids.
The Italians were the first to learn this art from the Phoenicians and the glass factories of Rome surpassed those of Syria and Egypt.
A certain "Domenico fiolario" is present in the deed of donation of the church of S. Giorgio in Venice to the Benedictine friars, thus providing the first documented evidence of glassmaking activity in Murano.
since fiolario or fioler (from fiola, a glass container with a narrow neck) is the name given by the Venetians of the time to glassmakers.
The first products repeat late Roman and Byzantine shapes: they are pot-bellied bottles with elongated necks, called "inghistere", and "fiole or fielle", bottles with narrow necks from which the term "fioleri" derives, the first name for Venetian glassmakers.
Also of traditional shapes are the various types of truncated-conical glasses called "mojoli de girlanda et perlati e incostati", in fact the ancestors of the tipetti, and common table and tavern glasses.
Other containers were commissioned by the Republic from the Murano furnaces and served as measuring vessels for the sale of oil and wine in public establishments.
It is worth noting that in every era these blown glass masterpieces, and the Murano chandeliers first of all, in fact they are always the work of the "piazza" (a team of four people led by the Maestro) and not of an individual.
