Glass-making
is likely to have accompanied the whole history of Venice, although the
first official document where a "Domenicus fiolarius" is mentioned (from "fiola",
bottle) dates back to 982 BC only. It seems right to suppose that this
activity was already flourishing before this date, but official documents
lack that might support this idea. No results has borne, yet, the research
made by some scholars on a thread that might connect glass-making in
nearby Aquileia, since the 5th century BC, to the development of this art
in Venice. Unfortunately many centuries void of any witness divide the
activity in Aquileia from that in Murano, making it impossible to detect
continuity between these two historical realities. Good relations between
Venice and the East, not only in trade, seem to back the hypothesis that
glass-making was imported to Venice right from the countries of the East.
This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that, since its inception,
Venetian glass was made of sodium ashes, following a well-established
procedure in the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, and not of
potassium ashes which, despite their several impurities, were largely used
in the glassworks of Northern Europe. Moreover, sodium ashes were imported
directly from Alexandria of Egypt or Syria. A large number of finds from
the Middle Ages has survived until our times, with their typical greenish
color peculiar to the glass made at the time. Alt Lucialternative
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