The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato Read Free Book Online Page A

Leonora.
He began to make his final glass jewel, not heeding that
all the slots in his rosewood box were already full. This
was not to be a droplet for the chandelier - it was a gift
for her.
    Corradino knew that, when the glassmakers had been
moved from Venice to Murano there had been another
motive than that of civic safety. Venetian glass was the best
in the world, and had been since eastern glassmaking techniques had been brought back from the fall of Constantinople.
Such methods were honed and developed, techniques were
passed from maestro to apprentice and a powerful monopoly
grew for the Republic on the back of these secrets. One the Grand Council was reluctant to relinquish. Almost at
once, for the glassmakers of Murano, the island became
not just their living and working quarters, but something
of a prison. The Consiglio Maggiore understood well the
saying; `He who hath a secret to keep must first keep it
secret.' Isolation was the key to the keeping of these secrets.
Even now, permission to go to the mainland was rarely
given. And more often than not, the maestri would be followed by agents of the Council. Corradino, because of his
talent, and his practice of taking careful measurements, and
the necessity of placing final touches himself, was given
more latitude than most. But he had, once before this time,
abused this trust. For on such a mainland trip he had met
Angelina.

    She was beautiful. Corradino was no celibate, but he was
used to seeing beauty only in the things that he had made.
In her he saw something divine, something that he could
not make. He met her in her father's palazzo on the Grand
Canal. Principe Nunzio del Vescovi wished to discuss a set
of two hundred goblets that were needed for his daughter's
wedding celebration. They were to match his daughter's
wedding gown and mask. Corradino brought, as instructed,
an inlaid box full of pigments and gems that he might use
to achieve the colour.
    All the great houses of Venice had two entrances, denoting
their own unmistakable dichotomy of class. The water
entrance was always fantastically grand, an imposing, decorative portal, with great double doors and part-submerged
boat-poles striped in the colours of the household.The water
door opened to invite the honoured guest into an enclosed
pool, marble-walled, with a landing stage leading to the exalted
reception rooms of the palazzo. The trade doors, opening
into the calle at the side of the house, were more modest,
for tradesmen and messengers and servants, opening directly
onto the pavement. This distinction, this difference of doors,
revealed much about the city - Venice owed everything to
the water. The Lagoon was all. It was on the water, those
shifting but faithful tides, that Venice had built her supremacy
and her empire - how fitting, therefore, that the waterways
of Venice were given precedence in this way. Corradino's
gondola, on that fateful day, was waved to the water entrance.
The great silver palace enveloped him and he was shown to
the main apartments by a deferential liveried servant. As
Corradino, in the humble leathers of a soffiature di vetro entered
the beautiful salons looking out onto the water he realized
that all had been done for him in deference to his rare talent.
The Prince, a man with the long features and silver hair of
nobility, received him as he would a kinsman. Corradino's
place in the world seemed assured.

    A servant was sent to fetch the Principessa Angelina, and
the dress. The Prince discussed the pigments and their
prices with Corradino over a fine Valpolicella, then as the
old man looked up and said `there you are my dear,'
Corradino heard no more.

    She was a revelation.
    Blonde hair like filaments of gold. Green eyes like leaves
in spring rain. And the countenance of a goddess. She was
a vision in blue - the silks of her wedding dress seemed
to have a hundred hues in the morning light and the dappled