| Millefiori, say Italians. Thousand flowers, say | | | | rediscovered it in the early 16th century. He and |
| English-speaking people. Words bring to mind | | | | his fellow glass makers went on to make millefiori |
| cherry blossom festival in Japan, or fields of wild | | | | what it is today: the most beautiful showcase of |
| flowers on the hills of Tuscany. It is the name for | | | | glass making that is coming from the Murano |
| one of the most beautiful techniques for glass | | | | workshops. |
| making ever invented. | | | | There are many different ways Murano |
| The 'fiori' or flowers are made of small beads of | | | | glassmakers play with colors, shapes, materials |
| cut glass. The beads are cut from long rods of | | | | and patterns to make millefiori art objects. Millefiori |
| glass, forged from many strips of glass of | | | | beads can be fused with gold or silver leaf, mixed |
| different colors that are melted together. The | | | | with precious or semi-precious stones, stretched |
| rods are cut into small slices, or beads. The cross | | | | to form rings, or, like in old times, used like dots |
| section of rods shows the interplay of colored | | | | of color to form scenes from nature, history or |
| glass, each different and unique. The beads were, | | | | imagination. In the past, millefiori decorated |
| and still are, used to make various objects, from | | | | pharaohs' tombs in Egypt and Roman wine |
| pendants to elaborate paintings, where each bead | | | | goblets. They are still made in Murano the same |
| was used like you would normally use dabs of | | | | way they were made thousands of years ago, |
| paint, to create a larger picture. The effects | | | | piece by piece, painstakingly putting together |
| 'flowers' create are mesmerizing, only limited by | | | | colored glass from hot furnaces of Murano to |
| the imagination of its creators. | | | | glass showcases of the world. |
| According to Carl Gable, who wrote an elaborate | | | | In the eyes of many customers all over the |
| book on Venetian glass, millefiori glass making | | | | world, millefiori became the synonym with Murano |
| technique has been invented more that four | | | | glass making. Vivid colors, play of light in |
| thousand years ago in the Middle East, but most | | | | differently shaped objects, and particularly in |
| data places this invention at the hands of | | | | jewelry pieces like pendants or beaded necklaces, |
| Phoenicians or Egyptians. There are some | | | | bring Murano, Venice and Italy into ordinary |
| archeological finds of fragments of objects | | | | homes on all continents. They are sufficiently |
| decorated with millefiori, showing extremely | | | | affordable now to decorate many beautiful necks |
| elaborate designs, in the tombs of Egyptian | | | | and ears of girls who were lucky to get such |
| pharaohs. Romans continued playing with millefiori | | | | original gift, or to break the monotony of a work |
| glass and spread the technique all over the world, | | | | desk in many gray, boring offices in the shape of |
| from Europe to China. But, as it happened with so | | | | colorful millefiori paperweights or paper knives. |
| many such inventions, the secret of making | | | | There is nothing that brings colors, play of light |
| millefiori was lost in time and abandoned, until one | | | | and shade, history and magic of Venice like |
| imaginative and patient glass maker from Murano | | | | millefiori. |