Murano near Venice - a tourist's dream

Murano consists of 7 individual islands in a lagoon north of Venice, linked together by beautiful bridges. Travel to Murano from Ven­ice by public vapor­etto, then walk the island canals and visit the beautiful build­ings on each side of the Grand Canal on foot. Have lunch outside any restaurant that is facing the Canal. 

Let’s start at the start. Murano made its living from fishing and salt. In the Roman Empire moulded glass was made in Venice, the indus­try blending Roman experience with skills learned from the Byz­ant­ine Empire and trade with the Or­ient. Thus Venice was emerging as a glass-manufacturing centre as early as the C8th.

Initially a church devoted to the Virgin Mary was built in the C7th then rebuilt tw­ice. Apparently Emp­eror Otto I’s ship was caught by a strong Adriatic storm so he vowed to build a church dedic­at­ed to the Virgin. The st­orm stopped, and Otto saw an apparition that directed him to Murano. He built a church con­sec­rated in 957 and the slim cam­p­­anile/bell tower that stood apart. Both the church and the camp­anile were built of unplastered dark-brown-red brick.

Santa Maria and San Donato Cathedral  

Note a beautiful square sur­rounded by smaller historical buildings. Meanwhile the eastern fac­ade, which faced a canal, was de­­corated with special colon­n­ades to cr­eate a magnificent first imp­res­sion. But why was it called St Donato, a man who did not have any conn­ection to the Venetian lagoon. Ven­etians used to buy important relics and bring them home from their travels, to earn authority in intern­at­­ion­al rel­at­ions and tourism. The relics of St Donato, and the huge bones said to belong to the dragon slain by St Donato, were brought to Murano in 1125. Fights between the St Ma­r­ia and St Stefano par­ish­es were har­sh, lasting until 1125 when Doge Domenico Michele streng­th­ened the Santa Maria church by storing St Donato’s rel­ics in a mar­ble sarcophagus. Since then, the church was devoted to St Don­ato! To celebrate, a col­our­­ful stone mosaic floor in Byzantine style was made in c1140. The is­land only has three churches still operating.

When did the Glassmakers’ Guild become important on the island? The Guild laid out craft­smen’s rules, to safe­guard the trade secrets and en­s­ure the in­dustry’s profits, and a 1271 law prohib­it­ed the imp­ort of foreign glass or employment of foreign workers. A tougher law was passed in 1291, requiring all glassmaking furnaces be moved to Murano, to avoid fire spreading over Venice’s dense wooden structures.

Because of Venice’s location at the cultural bridge between Eastern and Western trade, the city’s glass peaked in popul­ar­ity in the C15th-C16th. The popularity of Chinese porcelain among Eur­opean nob­ility fuel­led a white-glass-mimicking-porcelain industry. Moneyed families starte­d to create palaces for themselves. Examine, for example, Pal­azzo da Mula, a medieval palace featuring the gothic façade and Byz­ant­ine déco­r­ation that was so popular in Venetian architecture. In the C16th the noble Mula fam­ily rebuilt the original build­ing to a large extent. It is still a very imp­ressive municip­al registry office today.

Another patrician palace in typical gothic style became the Palace of the Bishops of Torcello in 1659, just as reb­uilding was being car­ried out based on plans by architect Antonio Gasp­ari. When in 1805 Torcel­lo Diocese was abolished, the palace pas­s­ed to the Venice Patriarchate then sold to the Murano Mun­icipality to become the townhall. When the museum and archives were established in 1861, they were both housed on the 1st floor. But the steady growth of the collection made it necess­ary to find more space and so grad­ual­ly the museum occupied the whole palace. 

After the autonomous Murano Municipality was abol­ished in 1923 and annexed to Venice, the building became part of the Venice Civic Mu­seums. Visit the Murano Museum of Glass which was ren­ov­ated in 2016, although the exterior has rem­ained true to the original.

Ven­et­ian power on the trade routes reduced and new craft centres em­erged in Bohemia and Fr­ance instead. But while Murano glass might have entered a gradual decline in the C17th, this was also an era of baroque taste that spread via European architecture, painting and int­erior de­c­­oration. At least royal courts continued to order glass­ware.

But in the C18th the political climate worsened. The industry suffered with Napol­eon’s con­quest of Venice in 1797 and his abolition of Ven­ice’s guilds. In 1814, the transfer of Venice from France to the Hab­s­burg Em­pire created anot­h­er crisis for Mur­ano’s economy; Habs­burg rul­ers pre­ferred their own art centres in Bohemia so they passed laws mak­ing it ex­pensive to bring neces­sary raw materials into Murano.

In 1861 Ven­ic­e’s mayor built an Archive ded­ic­ated to both the writings and the objects prod­uced. There was an Archive Exhibition (1864) and then intern­at­ional shows followed eg the 1867 Univer­s­al Exposit­ion in Paris where Salviati exhib­it­ed 500+ works made by his firm to in­ter­nat­ion­al acclaim. This publicity led to com­­plete revival of Mur­ano, empl­oy­ing 3,500 people by 1870. The Murano & Ven­ice Exhib­ition of Choice Glass Obj­ects in 1895 in Murano City Hall was success­ful, as were the Paris Univ­er­sal Exposit­ion in 1900, fol­l­ow­ed by Exp­os­itions of Turin’s Decorative Arts in 1902 and Milan’s in 1906.

Many residents on Murano painted their houses in bright neon hues. The homeowners said that the tradition of brightly coloured homes stemmed from the island's origins as a fishing village i.e they used vibrant colours so they could find their way home in the dark and the fog. This made sense since Murano didn’t have the mega-wealthy class of the glory days of Venice. Nonetheless the same bright houses on the canals these days are largely to draw tourists.