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In 1291 the Grand Council of Venice ordered
all the glass makers out of the city onto the island of Murano ,
apparently out of a concern about the fire risk from the Kilns. That hardly
seems the way to found the greatest glass making center the world has ever
seen, and yet Venice went on to dominate European glass making for hundreds of
years. The history of Italian glass is centered around the city, and it’s still
important today. Looking back, it seems the order of 1291 was a cornerstone in
the overwhelming and enduring success of Venetian glass.
We are told that dental retainers are devices
made of wires or plastic which are worn to realign the teeth. While there are
no official statistics regarding the actual percentage of orthodontic retainer
wearers globally, experientially, most of us at one time or another know of
someone who has worn them.And so we take a step back and consult the dictionary
in search of a contextual meaning for “retainer” and Merriam-Webster obliges us
with the following definition: a device or structure that holds something in
place. And naturally, as an example it references dental retainers to
illustrate its meaning.Thus we (referring to those of us who actually wear
glasses) slowly start to see how retainers come into play in regards to
eyeglasses. Eyeglass retainers hold the glasses in place. Which begs the
question: in what way do eyeglasses have to be held in place?
While glass making had existed in the Venetian
lagoon since the 8th century AD, the output had been practical items such as
storage jars. The arrival of the merchants from the Eastern
Mediterranean fueled a rapid expansion of the glass industry, and
the production of all manner of decorative and artistic glass wares. The Venetians
were shrewd, they’d seen how the migrating artisans had brought a new industry
into their city, and they wanted to keep it there by introducing and
legislating a monopoly on the production of Venetian glass. In 1291 the
Venetian rulers forced the glass artisans out of the city, yet they offered
them a new home on the nearby island
of Murano . The island was
not far from Venice ,
but it was isolated. It was not on the way to anywhere, no one had business to
go there. It became a city of master glass workers, sealed off from the rest of
the world.
The answer is that with extended wear,
eyeglasses tend to slip down our noses and the result is that many of us spend
a large proportion of our day pushing up our falling eyeglasses. So much so
that it isn’t uncommon to be pushing up one’s glasses at least once every two
or three minutes, which easily works out to several hundred times per day if we
subtract the sleeping hours.Now before we proceed, let us allow, that
pertaining to falling eyeglasses, we use the term eyeglass to refer to not only
prescription lenses with frames, but to mean all such frames and lenses whether
common wear or sunglasses, prescription or otherwise.So pertaining to our first
of three discussions: eyeglass retainers are devices which prevent eyeglasses
from slipping down your nose.
People born and bred on the island had glass
making in their blood. All the activity on the island was centered around the
glass making industry, focused on making the finest possible wares for the
export market. Young apprentices were taught all the traditional skills, and
they only had to wander around the neighborhood to work with the best glass
makers in Europe . Most would be friends and
relatives.
The Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth
sound 390 years ago to eventually create what we now know as the U.S.A. The Roman empire lasted 500 years. The glass making community
of Murano was founded 719 years ago; you can’t help wondering whether the
rulers of Venice
realized that they were creating such a venerable and unique institution.
Trace back the history of fine glass making,
Italian or otherwise, and you’ll find it’s a skill passed from generation to
generation, moving with the Artisans. The art of glass making that was born in
Mesopotamia around 3500 BC eventually reached Egypt . The Egyptians learned to
make hollow glass objects by wrapping molten glass around a core mould, then
rolling it on a smooth surface to give it the desired shape.
As Rome fell
and Europe slid into the dark ages, Venice
eventually emerged as the glassmaking center of the Western world. Pretty much
all Italian glass that we know of today came from Venice . The connections of the Venetian
merchants with Syria and Byzantium along with Venice ’s
undisputed naval power on the Mediterranean and its covert participation in the
crusades helped transport the glassmakers from the advanced Eastern regions
into Venice .
The Venetians looked after their glass
workers. The glass makers guild had the highest social status, its members were
equal to nobles, could carry swords and marry into the most blue-blooded
Venetian families. The Venetians ensured a monopoly on the finest raw
materials Ray Ban 25093 Sonnenbrillen, and Murano islanders were
rarely called up for military duties. In return for all these favors, however,
the law stated that members of the glass workers guild were not allowed to ever
leave the Venetian
Republic .
In the 1st century BC the new method of glass
making – glass blowing – was invented somewhere along the Mediterranean Coast
and was quickly commercialized by the Romans. In this method some molten glass
was attached to the end of a thin hollow tube. A glassmaker would then blow
through this tube, thus producing various shapes out of the molten glass. Later
this method was enhanced to blow the molten glass into a mould which allowed
creation of a wide variety of hollow glass items.
It seems barbaric by modern standards, but in
those days ordinary folk didn’t travel without good reason, and Murano’s glass
workers had little motivation to move. Venice ’s
role as the most important trading post in Europe
meant there was always a buoyant market for high quality goods. Their high
status as first class citizens in a wealthy and powerful City was an enviable
position. But perhaps most of all, Murano itself was an artisans heaven.
To this day mass production techniques are
shunned in Murano, yet the best modern innovations are incorporated into the
glass making process to make the results even better. Modern Murano masters use
gas flames for their lamp work, kilns are regulated by electronic thermostats,
but the manipulation of the glass itself is strictly done by hand, using
techniques and tools perfected by their ancestors hundreds of years ago.
Today Murano is still pretty much as it’s
always been. An small tranquil island of canals and alleyways, it’s protected
from motor vehicles and the hustle of modern life. These days islanders may
leave the city, but it is still filled by Italian glass workers, often the
descendants of the ancient ones Oakley Sonnenbrillen, who are eager to have a place in
the unique community that revolves entirely around fine glass making. The
powerful Guild has been replaced by a ConsorzioOakley
Sonnenbrillen Shop, a legally recognized trade institution that both
promotes Murano glass and protects the traditions of the industry, limiting its
membership to artisans trained in the traditional Murano ways.
On Murano, the emphasis has always been on
traditional techniques and progressive style. Nobody could become a master
glass worker until they had learned all the traditional methods, but when they
had mastered the skills, they used them to produce items of beauty that
followed or even challenged the latest trends and fashions. Murano masters did
not just blindly learn the trade – they had continuously tried new techniques
or improved existing ones, and the ideas that worked soon passed through to the
rest of the community.
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