Dominika Mačáková
Although we presented the “Homo Faber” event which took place in 2022 in the city of Venice in the last issue of the RUD magazine, the topic of contemporary views of craft remains unexhausted. The island of Murano near Venice is famed for its glass-making craft, which we will describe in the following lines. Venetian glass-making art was born of deep links to Syria and Egypt. The first Venetian glass-makers imitated their work and imported some raw materials from this area for their production. In Venice, only local glass-makers were allowed to blow glass, in order to protect their unique technological method from the competition. In 1268, the first Venetian glass-making guild was founded, and a few years later an agreement was concluded on the rights and obligations of its members, including the ban on important glass from abroad. In 1292, due to the risk of fire, Venice banished all the glass-making furnaces to Murano island, which was in the Venetian lagoon, only two kilometres north of the city. In the 14th century, production was already quite developed in this area. Despite all these measures, glassworks were gradually established all over Italy. For example, they were founded in Florence, Naples, in Sicily and in Genoa, but they never achieved the same fame as those in Murano.