In front of the window is inserted a lip of marble, on which rests the
heaped-up clay and the iron shield. The clay holds the blow-pipe when it
is put into the furnace, whereas the shield preserves the eyes of the glass-maker
from the fire. All this having been carried out in order, the glass-makers
bring the work to completion. The broken pieces they re-melt with dry wood,
which emits no smoke, but only a flame. The longer they re-melt it, the purer
and more transparent it becomes, the fewer spots and busters there are, and
therefore the glass-makers can carry out their work more easily. For this
reason those who only melt the material from which glass is made for one
night, and then immediately make it up into glass articles, make them less
pure and transparent than those who first produce a vitreous mass and then
re-melt the broken pieces again for a day and a night. And, again, these make
a less pure and transparent glass than do those who melt it again for two days
and two nights, for the excellence of the glass does not consist solely in the
material from which it is made, but also in the melting. The glass-makers
often test the glass by drawing it up with the blowpipes ; as soon as they
observe that the fragments have been re-melted and purified satisfactorily,
each of them with another blow-pipe which is in the pot, slowly stirs and takes
up the glass which sticks to it in the shape of a ball like a glutinous, coagulated
gum. He takes up just as much as he needs to complete the article he wishes
to make ; then he presses it against the lip of marble and kneads it round and
round until it consolidates. When he blows through the pipe he blows as
he would if inflating a bubble ; he blows into the blow-pipe as often as it is
necessary, removing it from his mouth to re-fill his cheeks, so that his breath
does not draw the flames into his mouth. Then, twisting the lifted blow-pipe
round his head in a circle, he makes a long glass, or moulds the same in a
hollow copper mould, turning it round and round, then warming it again,
blowing it and pressing it, he widens it into the shape of a cup or vessel, or of
any other object he has in mind. Then he again presses this against the
marble to flatten the bottom, which he moulds in the interior with his other
blow-pipe. Afterward he cuts out the up with shears, and, if necessary, adds
feet and handles. If it so please him, he gilds it and paints it with various
colours. Finally, he lays it in the oblong earthenware receptacle, which is
placed in the third furnace, or in the upper chamber of the second furnace,
that it may cool. When this receptacle is full of other slowly-cooled articles,
he passes a wide iron bar under it, and, carrying it on the left arm, places it
in another recess.
The glass-makers make divers things, such as goblets, cups, ewers, flasks,
dishes, plates, panes of glass, animals, trees, and ships, all of which excellent and
wonderful works I have seen when I spent two whole years in Venice some
time ago. Especially at the time of the Feast of the Ascension they were on
sale at Morano, where are located the most celebrated glass-works. These I
saw on other occasions, and when, for a certain reason, I visited Andrea
Naugerio in his house which he had there, and conversed with him and
Francisco Asulano.
END OF BOOK XII.
