The Venice Film Festival closes today, but, if you're in Venice and you love fashion, glass, jewels and local history, you should maybe stay for a few more days and check out the event "La Donna del Fuoco. Marietta Barovier pioniera delle perle veneziane" ("The Woman of Fire. Marietta Barovier, pioneer of Venetian beads", 13th September) at the Museo del Vetro (Glass Museum) in Murano.
The event is part of the Venice Glass Week 2019 and it is dedicated to Marietta Barovier, a local woman from the 15th century and an entrepreneur as well.
Marietta was the daughter of glassmaker master Angelo Barovier, to whom the invention of pure and transparent crystal glass is attributed. During Marietta's time, glass works were mainly made by men: women were not allowed in the furnaces as the work there was deemed too hard for them.
The main link women had with glass was represented by the conterie (from the Latin comptus, decorated, ornated), glass beads threaded by young Venetian women - the "impiraperle" or "impiraresse" - in their houses and sold by the row.
Marietta focused on enamel decorations and developed new models of glass beads that prompted the Doge Agostino Barbarigo to allow her to use a small furnace for her decorated glass pieces.
Marietta created the elegant motifs of the Barovier wedding goblet (preserved at the Glass Museum of Murano) and other objects in striking nuances going from ruby red to emerald green, from amethyst to "lattimo" white (an opaque milk-like glass suited for blowing), decorated with small dots, vegetal, floral and foliated motifs and sacred and secular themes, symbols and coat of arms.
The designer and artisan is better remembered for creating the "Rosetta" (little rose) bead around 1480.
This type of bead can take different shapes, from round to oblong, and it is characterised by a 12-point star (Marietta may have been inspired in its design by a meeting with rosicrucian friar Paolo Govi) or a 12-petal rose motif that called to mind that of a rose. The effect is created by applying seven concentric layers (6 or 4 in more modern versions) of glass - "lattimo" white, red and blue - and then polishing tnem.
Marietta wasn't just a pioneering woman in the glass furnace and the keeper of secrets of male artisans, but she indirectly became through her bead also a key figure in international trade.
For at least two centuries the Rosetta pearls were indeed used as trading beads in Asia, Africa and the Americas in exchange for gold, precious gems, ivory, spices or as tokens to chiefs to cross a tribe's territory (the rosetta beads appear even on a 2010 stamp from Canada, celebrating 200 years of Canadian history View this photo).
"La donna del fuoco" at the Glass Museum in Murano is a performance based on library researches, interviews with glass historians and local artisans. Together with the short documentary about glass furnaces, artisans and family led glass companies in Murano entitled "Anime" (Souls) by Marco Rossitti presented at the 76th Venice Film Festival, it is part of a project that hopes Venetian glass beads will one day make the list of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage.
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