Venetian Enamelled Glass of about 1330, British Museum
Enamelled and gilded Venetian glass of around 1330, in the British Museum. The technique is Islamic in origin, learned through Venice's trade with Syria and Egypt, and it is exactly the kind of knowledge the later glassmakers' guild of Murano would go to great lengths to keep from leaving the lagoon.
Venice did not invent enamelled glass; it acquired the method through the eastern Mediterranean trade and then made it a monopoly. The furnaces were moved to Murano in 1291, ostensibly against fire risk and conveniently against escape, and the guild that governed them combined high privilege with tight control — masters ranked among the citizenry, daughters married into patrician families, and a craftsman who took his skill abroad was pursued. Objects like this one are what the secrecy was protecting. See glass, guilds and the foundations of Venice's economic power.
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