The Language of Murano Glass

A Avventurina

Glass shot through with countless microscopic copper crystals that catch the light like a starry sky. Its name comes from the Italian "a ventura" — by chance — because the effect was discovered on Murano by accident in the 17th century, and reproducing it reliably took another two hundred years.

B Battuto

A cold-working technique: once the piece has cooled, the surface is ground with a wheel into hundreds of small, shallow facets, leaving a finish like hammered metal. Introduced by Carlo Scarpa at Venini in the 1930s, it turns transparent glass soft and matte, so the light no longer passes through but settles on it.

B Bollicine

The tiny air bubbles trapped inside mouth-blown glass. They are not a flaw — they are the fingerprint of human breath. Machine-pressed glass has none, which is why their presence is one of the surest signs a piece is genuinely handmade.

C Calcedonio

An opaque, marbled glass streaked with warm veins of amber, violet and green, made by adding metal oxides to the molten mass. It imitates the semi-precious stone chalcedony, and was already being made on Murano in the 15th century.

C Canna

A thin rod of coloured glass, drawn out to several metres while molten and then cut into short lengths. Canne are the raw alphabet of Murano: filigrana, millefiori, murrina and zanfirico are all built by fusing them together in different ways.

C Cristallo

The colourless, perfectly transparent glass invented on Murano by Angelo Barovier around 1450 — the first glass in history clear enough to rival rock crystal. It made Venice the glass capital of Europe for three centuries, and every clear Murano piece descends from it.

F Filigrana

Fine white or coloured glass threads embedded in a transparent body and twisted into ribbons, lace or spirals. The master must fuse dozens of canne without letting a single one shift out of line — one degree of heat too much and the pattern collapses.

F Fornace

The furnace, and by extension the workshop built around it. A Murano fornace burns at around 1,000–1,450 °C and traditionally never goes out. Everything on the island — the hierarchy, the rhythm of the day, the language — is organised around it.

I Incalmo

The joining of two blown bubbles of different colours, while both are still molten, into a single vessel with a perfectly straight seam. It is among the hardest things a glassmaker can do: the two pieces must be at exactly the same temperature and diameter, or they tear apart.

L Lattimo

Milk-white opaque glass, made by adding tin or bone ash. Developed on Murano in the 15th century in imitation of Chinese porcelain — which Europe could not yet make — it is the ancestor of every white art glass in the West.

M Maestro

The master glassblower who leads the team at the furnace and shapes the piece himself. The title is not academic: it is earned over decades, and only the maestro decides when a work is finished — or when it goes back into the fire.

M Millefiori

Literally "a thousand flowers". Slices of multicoloured canne, each with a flower-like pattern running through its whole length, are fused together so the motif repeats across the surface. The technique is Roman in origin and was revived on Murano in the 19th century.

M Murrina

A cane built up in layers so that a pattern — a flower, a star, a face — runs through its core like the letters in a stick of rock. Cut into slices, each murrina reveals the same image. Millefiori is one particular family of murrine.

P Pulegoso

Glass made deliberately full of bubbles, which give it a rough, opaque, almost stone-like surface. Invented by Napoleone Martinuzzi at Venini in 1928, it broke with the Venetian obsession with transparency — and made glass look, for the first time, like something ancient.

R Reticello

Two layers of filigrana blown one inside the other with their threads running in opposite directions, forming a fine diamond mesh — with a single tiny air bubble trapped in each diamond. It is widely considered the most difficult technique in all of glassmaking.

R Rigadin

The fine vertical ribbing pressed into a piece while it is still molten, sometimes then twisted so the ribs spiral. Simple in principle, it is what gives so much Venetian glass its characteristic shimmer as it turns in the light.

S Sommerso

Literally "submerged". A core of coloured glass is dipped repeatedly into molten transparent crystal, so each layer encases the one beneath. The colour ends up floating inside the piece rather than sitting on its surface — you do not look at it, you look into it.

V Vetro Artistico® Murano

The Vetro Artistico® Murano trademark, created by the Veneto Region under Regional Law no. 70 of 1994. It is the only official, legally protected mark of origin for Murano glass, and only licensed furnaces on the island may apply it. It is not a quality rating — it certifies where a piece was made.

Z Zanfirico

A twisted cane in which fine white threads spiral around a transparent core, like a barber's pole. Named after the 19th-century Venetian antiquarian Antonio Sanquirico, who revived the Renaissance technique — Murano turned his name into the word.

Each of these techniques takes years at the furnace to master. If you want to see how they are actually made, read the techniques in depth or discover the savoir-faire of Murano.