With a long legacy of closely guarding their trade secrets, workshops in Murano are reluctant to welcome newcomers, said Beltrami, 34. “Everybody was afraid you were going to steal their job, and nobody wanted to teach you anything.”
“It was really nightmarish, having this passion for this material, and then you can’t really learn anything,” he added.
Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, Beltrami decided to strike out on his own. In 2017, the then-25-year-old started his own workshop, Wave Murano Glass.
Now with a team of 20, many of them in their twenties and thirties, Beltrami — believed to be the youngest glass master in Murano — is ushering in a new generation of artisans. “We’re not all under the age of 35 but the average age is definitely under 35 — which is unheard of in Murano,” said Beltrami.
A millennium of glassmaking
Glass is formed by melting sand, soda ash and limestone at temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit). With a texture similar to treacle, the molten glass mixture is held on the end of a hollow pipe, inflated with air, and then shaped swiftly by swinging, blowing, and rolling while the material is still hot and pliable. Once cooled, it takes on a hard, transparent form.
In Venice, glass has been manufactured for over 1,000 years. To prevent fires from the hot furnaces and keep trade secrets from escaping the city, all the glass factories were moved to Murano in 1291, where they’ve remained since.
In addition to the invention of cristallo, Murano became well-known for its ability to add vibrant color to clear glass.
“It’s not so easy to have different colors of glass together and have them match chemically,” said Beltrami, explaining that each shade uses a unique element — such as cobalt for purple-blue, lead for pale yellow, or tellurium for a pink tint — which expand and contract at different rates when they heat and cool.