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Nov 24 - Dec 1,2002 |
How Murano became the glass capital
Discovered by the Phoenicians (or Egyptians) glass arrives in Venice and then the world
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2002-03-31
Pliny the Elder wrote that glass was discovered by the Phoenicians. According to his tale, some traders were sailing up the river Belos, in Syria. At sundown they beached their ship and prepared an oven to bake a goat. The riverbank was sandy, and they couldn't find a large stone, so they used some blocks of natron they had on board. They used them to build the oven, then they put in the goat and lit up a fire. Where the hot natron touched the sand, a bright rivulet formed and later solidified, emitting a silvery sparkle. Pliny claimed that this had taken place 2,000 years before his lifetime; considering he died in 79 B.C., calculations are easy.
The tale of the great naturalist is suggestive, but unfortunately has been disproved by archaeological excavations. Some Egyptian tombs contained toys and amulets made in glass paste, and those tombs date back to about 4,000 B.C.
No one can rule out the possibility that the Egyptians discovered glass the way Pliny attributed to Phoenicians, i.e. by chance. Fact is, it is one of the oldest discoveries in history, allowing humans to express fantasy and creativity. Egyptians, for instance, had found a way to obtain blue or green glass by adding a little cobalt or copper oxide to the fusion.
However, it was first in Rome and then in Venice that glass was used for sophisticated practical applications and industrial productions.
The potential use in everyday life of that incandescent paste obtained by the fusion of natron and sand became apparent under Emperor Augustus, when Roman glassmakers invented glassblowing, thus shaping glass in useful ways. They created vases and bottles, vials and lachrymatories. Moreover, they managed to cut, decorate and paint glass.
They invented panes which manufactured with ingenuity. In the crucible full of incandescent glass paste, they dipped an iron cylinder that became coated with a uniform layer of paste. After removing the cylinder from the crucible, this still-soft layer was cut lengthways, laid down flat and pressed with bronze cylinders to obtain a thin sheet. It wasn't too difficult to figure out how that sheet, cut in quadrangular pieces, could be adapted to windows, thus keeping dust and wind out while allowing sunlight in.
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