They have been making glass for over 700 years. The industry has survived invasions, competition, wars, the invention of plastic, changing fashions, and previous economic collapse. In spite of the broken windows in the abandoned foundries, the rotting boards on the docks that speak of hard times being endured on the island, it is difficult to believe that Murano will not once again undergo a revival of its craft
The shrine was made of glass: a glass mosaic Virgin and Child in the Byzantine style. The floral offerings on the ledge below the icon were moulded glass in red, pink, yellow, orange, and blue. The virgin bore her child like a medallion on her chest. Her glance, alert, almost fearful was caught by something to her right. Her gaze, intense yet distracted, rendered irrelevant the opulent ornamentation surrounding her. What, the observer could only wonder, was she looking at? On this damp grey day in early spring the shrine gleamed, refracting the light caught by the glass mosaics.
On Fondamente Cavour the shop windows glowed. Glass in a myriad of colours and forms illuminated the town’s shopfronts.
It is glass that lures Glassmaking probably began in Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago, but it was the Romans who industrialized it. During that period glassmakers travelled throughout the empire freely exchanging ideas and techniques.
Twenty years after the death of Jesus Christ, the technique that revolutionized glass production, glassblowing, was developed in Jerusalem
Some historians believe the original glassworkers of Northern Italy were descendants of freed Syrian and Judean slaves who spread their craft through the Roman Empire . Whoever these early craftsmen were, the tradition of glassmaking has deep roots in the area. By the first century AD Northern Italy was exporting small coloured glass bowls.
With its rows of solid brick buildings along the seafront and the workmanlike steel bridge over Murano’s Grand Canal , there is something masculine about Murano, in spite of its delicate, dazzling products.
The Via Annia, a Roman road followed the Adriatic coast as far as the glassmaking centre of Aquileia
Refugees from Altinum escaped Attila the Hun’s invasion of Italy Venetian Republic
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When the Lombards invaded 
The new millennium saw Murano’s fortunes on the rise. Proof of this was the island’s acquisition of its own saintly relics in 1125. The remains of St Donatus and some remains of the dragon he slew were brought from Then in 1291 the Venetian Doge Tiepolo changed Murano forever when he closed down the glass furnaces in Venice
During the years that followed this move the Venetians tried to retain the lead in glass production in The move benefited both the Venetians and the Muranese. Venice
In return the Muranese were provided with their very own medieval-style state of the art industrial estate. They were elevated socially and their daughters married into the families of rich Venetian merchants. The craftsmen immediately began to expand their product range, revived ancient glassmaking techniques, invented new ones. They kept the balance of trade with Europe on the plus side for the merchants.
Today tourists visit Murano as part of the Venetian experience to tour the glass museum and those glass factories open for inspection.
They are following a well trodden path. In the Middle Ages Murano was a popular destination for visitors from Within two hundred years all Murano’s ‘secret’ manufacturing processes had been copied in other parts of Europe and it was no longer the remarkable destination it once had been.
In 1797 Napoleon invaded Venice
By the mid-1800s few people risked visiting the islands, except for the young and adventurous. Byron, Shelley and James Fennimore Cooper were numbered among those who braved the lagoon trip.
Murano suffered a further blow when the Austrians built a deep water shipping lane from Mestre to Glassmaking did not die out entirely, however. Although only five foundries survived, by the late 1800s Murano was back in commercial production. The foundries turned out glass mosaic tiles as part of the restoration of Venice
The resilience of the Muranese saw them ride the economic roller coaster of the 20th century, the wars, the sudden shifts in fashion. Vittorio Tosa Borella led the glass revival on Murano in the early part of the twentieth century. He was followed by equally talented and farsighted artisans. But the Second World War brought hard times for the industry and in the years after the war Muranese craftsmen worked hard to regain their popularity and their customer base.
By 2001 Murano was once again turning a profit. One third of the 5,000 people on the island worked on their own as artisans or shopkeepers. 27 industrial glassworks processed 13,000 metric tons of raw glass a year.
Such a run of good fortune could not last. The world wide economic collapse in 2008 shattered the tourist industry. The glass artists of Murano fought back. For Christmas 2009 they put on their usual glittering, colourful public display – an antidote to the bleakness of the northern winter. On a damp grey day in early spring in 2010 small groups of tourists wandered past the brightly lit windows of the glass shops, or sipped coffee in the restaurants. Few were buying.
By afternoon the rain was falling, rivulets of light flowed from the front of the shopfronts into the canal. A sudden surge of children released from school filled the street. The children skittered across the iron bridge. Their mothers, impeded by prams and strollers, calling warnings as they struggled to keep up with their charges. Soon they were gone, mothers and children, down the lanes and alleys.
A Venice
In the momentary silence that followed the departure of the vaporetto the icon glimmered through the rain, the virgin still alert to whatever danger lurked nearby.
Observer
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