What a beauty...
During our
guided tours of Venice we normally like to tell our guests not only about the art and history of our city, but also about its peculiar culture and traditions, which can be frequently found
in the artisan workshops. Skilled hands transform different materials into objects that can be considered
real pieces of Venetian art.
(If you want to know more about our specific tours this is the link
Venice Specific Tours and this is right the one for the
Arts and Crafts in Venice).
The Art of Venetian Glass Beads
It seems that the first
glass bead makers in Venice,
all men, were called
margaritieri, who produced small beads that were frequently used to
embroid and decorate mainly clothes. There were also the so called
paternosteri (from the prayer “Padre nostro”, i.e. “Our Father”) who
created beads for rosaries (only long afterwords would the same beads be used for necklaces).
Quite soon, however,
several women started to produce beads, and most of their workshops were concentrated in the
Cannaregio District. It was the daughter of a renowned Venetian glass blower, Maria Barovier, who first among women decided
to produce glass beads, creating the famous Rosetta.
Rosetta bead
The beads produced in Venice became well renowned
all over the world, they would be even used as real exchange currency in
the commerce with Africa and America, thus creating
cultural bridges among the different continents.Since December, 2020, on a proposal of the Committee for the Safeguarding of the Art of Venetian Glass Beads,
the Art of Venetian Glass Beads has been registered on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity protected by UNESCO.Intangible: the heritage is not the bead itself… it’s the hands that produce beads and the community of those artisans that use beads in different ways to create refined art objects.
In the Studio of a Glass Bead Maker: Alessia Fuga
Alessia Fuga
We would like to introduce to you
a great perlera (i.e.
glass bead maker), who works in Murano. Her name is
Alessia Fuga.She was very young when she decided to undertake this profession, fascinated by the history and the beauty of
Venetian glass beads. She took it as a challenge to grow both as an artisan and as a person.
After having attended a course on glass bead making, she decided to quit her studies in Economics and to
open her workshop in Murano.
The Studio of Alessia Fuga in Murano Island
Alessia Fuga in her Studio
Alessia tells us with great emotion about
her passion…
She shows us how she creates every
single bead, following ancient traditions. She starts by
melting a glass rod and wrapping the melted glass around a long steel needle, thus producing the base of the bead, which can then be modelled in different shapes and eventually decorated.
Different colors of glass rods
Melting the glass rod
The decorations can be of all sorts, but the one that Alessia prefers is the
dotted decoration: after having covered the base of the bead with some silver leaf, she melts thin glass
rods of different colours and touches the base with them, creating with great skill perfect little dots.
This technique, to put it in Alessia’s words, allows her to concentrate her attention on the object she is working on. In her opinion, this is a zen technique, almost a sort of therapy.
Dotted decoration
The final result is simply amazing: it is always different, every single bead is unique and unrepeatable!
It is also possible to make blown beads using another special technique…
A Beautiful Alessia Fuga's Bead
Alessia Fuga's Beads
Obviously, in order to come up with such masterpieces you need patience, passion, skills and practice…
Even if it's in Italian language, you can link to our
Youtube channel to wacth a short video for having an idea of Alessia creating her beautiful beads
Alessia Fuga and her beads Would you like to test your ability? Wouldn’t it be interesting to take a guided tour at the discovery of the world of beads in Venice and Murano? And what about spending one and a half hour at Alessia’s studio to learn from her how
to create an original Venetian glass bead with your own hands? We sure think this might be a
unique and unrepeatable experience to live in Venice, as well as a new way to visit our city by entering its history and traditions, not just looking at it from the outside.
We’ll be waiting for you! Ciao!
Contacts:
info@guidedtoursinvenice.com