Chapter XXII: Contemporary Glass (2)

How far the so-called _diatretum_ work is based upon such _appliqué_
or added portions of glass is a much disputed point. Mr. Nesbitt
appears to have regarded all such work as so formed (_Catalogue,
Slade Collection_, pp. xiv.-xv.), and the imitations now made at
Murano are certainly built up in this way; not so, however, some of
the genuine ancient pieces, I think. (See below, p. 71.)

Footnote 35:

The Egyptians, too, as we have seen, sometimes decorated their glass
with similar splashes, but we never find that these are distorted.

Footnote 36:

There are many allusions to the painting of glass, in some cases
merely by varnishes, in the early mediæval treatises on glass (see
Chap. VII.). Some of these recipes, as we shall see, may have been
handed down from classical times.

Footnote 37:

The contents have been described by the late Canonico Passini, in a
magnificent work published by Ongania of Venice, in which nearly
every piece of importance is reproduced in colour or by photography.

Footnote 38:

There is among the Roman glass in the museum at Cologne a shallow
bowl about a foot in diameter, painted on the back, as in the later
_verre églomisé_, with a female head. The colours—black, red, and
white—are but slightly burnt in, and therefore much decomposed.

Footnote 39:

This part is stated to be a distinct piece cemented on to the bottom
of the vessel. So at least says Mr. Apsley Pellatt in his
_Curiosities of Glass-making_, writing, I think, before the vase was
broken.

In the same book will be found a careful account of the process of
‘casing’ as now practised. It was probably by some such plan, in the
case of the Portland vase, that the _paraison_ of blue glass was
blown into the previously prepared vessel of opaque white.

Footnote 40:

I shall return to this sculptured work when treating of Byzantine
glass in the next chapter.

Footnote 41:

By the courtesy of Lord Rothschild I have had an opportunity of
examining this wonderful cup. It is undoubtedly carved from one piece
of glass. The spirited execution would seem to point to a date hardly
much later than the beginning of the third century. The internal
depressions were made perhaps with the object of lighting up the
external figures. The glass by transmitted light is of a fiery red,
tending to purple, but the figure of Lycurgus is exceptionally of a
fine amethystine tint. I think that in both cases the colour is
probably due to a skilful use of manganese.

Footnote 42:

The abrading material employed along with the wheel was probably in
most cases corundum or emery (the _adamas_ of the ancients) in a
powdered form; not the diamond, which was excessively rare, nor the
emerald, as is sometimes stated. This last stone is not only much
rarer than corundum, but it is also not so hard.

Footnote 43:

Compare what is said below on p. 82 of Greek-speaking Syrian artisans.

Footnote 44:

For some account of what these writers tell us about glass, see
below, Chap. VII.

Footnote 45:

Theophilus, however, writing a century earlier than the
pseudo-Heraclius, appears to speak of the marver as a slab of stone
(see below, Chap. VII.).

Footnote 46:

The sand of this river as a material for the manufacture of glass is
already mentioned by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle.

Footnote 47:

_Glebas nitri._ This is doubtless the natron (impure carbonate of
soda) exported from the Egyptian natron lakes, which have been worked
from a very early period—a substance that must not be confused with
our nitre (nitrate of potash); as I have said, the glass of the
ancients is essentially a soda glass. The natron was probably first
exported for the use of the soap-makers.

Footnote 48:

This again must not be confused with the white earth, which we now
know under that name, a substance unknown to the ancients.

Footnote 49:

By this is probably meant three parts in twelve or ten, _i.e._ 25 or
30 per cent. of the whole.

Footnote 50:

Great care must be exercised in translating the names of the precious
stones and marbles mentioned by Greek and Roman writers. These names
are used in the vaguest way, which hardly ever corresponds to the
modern meaning.

Footnote 51:

Among others, from the early history of the Christian Church in these
parts.

Footnote 52:

At Rome, too, there is some reason to think that the working of
glass—the minor departments of that art, at least—was long in the
hands of Syrian or other Semitic immigrants. Martial’s itinerant
hawker from the Transtevere, who bartered his sulphur matches for
broken glass, we may perhaps think of as a Jew (Book 1., _Epigram._
42).

Footnote 53:

See p. 88.

Footnote 54:

Compare with these the bottle from Cologne in the British Museum
containing a hardened mass of some yellow substance, and closed by a
decayed cork partly covered by a corroded bronze capsule (_Slade
Catalogue_, No. 275).

Footnote 55:

Both these forms are found in Anglo-Saxon and Frankish graves. It
will be remembered that in France there was no sudden break in the
Roman culture on the appearance of the Germanic invaders, as was the
case in England.

Footnote 56:

Philostratus describes the process by which the ‘barbarians of the
ocean’ spread colours upon heated bronze so as to form a hard
enduring decoration. He was of the household of Julia Domna, and M.
Froehner suggests that he may have heard of these enamels from one of
the officers of the army of Septimius Severus.

Footnote 57:

The famous enamelled bowl, however, found in a Roman tomb of the time
of Hadrian, at Bartlow, Essex, was accompanied by a cinerary vase and
other examples of glass. See _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi.

Footnote 58:

The chapter dealing with these marks, together with that on the
geographical distribution, forms the most valuable part of M.
Froehner’s already quoted work on ancient glass.

Footnote 59:

So when some of our leading archæologists saw at first in the
discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenæ and Troy the work of wandering
tribes of the fifth and sixth centuries, they were unconsciously
arguing in favour of this often renewed Oriental influence.

Footnote 60:

The glass from the catacombs has long attracted notice, with the
result that many more or less clever forgeries, dating from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have to be reckoned with. These
_fondi d’oro_ are most completely illustrated by Garucci in the third
volume of the Jesuit father’s great work, the _Storia dell’ Arte
Christiana_ (1876), as well as in an earlier work (1858 and 1864),
especially devoted to Christian glass. The most scholarly treatment
of the subject is to be found in the little work of Dr. Hermann
Vopel, _Die Alt-Christlichen Goldgläser_ (1899). For an excellent
summary of what is known on the subject, see also the catalogue of
the early Christian Antiquities in the British Museum, by Mr. O. M.
Dalton, and the same writer’s paper in the _Archæological Journal_
(1901).

Footnote 61:

‘... quo facto desuper ipsas
Armavi vitrum docto flatu tenuatum
Ignis; sed post quam pariter sensere calorem
Se vitrum fialis tenuatum junxit honeste.’

These lines, which describe the critical process by which the
superficial layer of glass was applied, are unfortunately somewhat
obscure. If I have translated them aright, the process did not differ
much from that now adopted at Murano. Heraclius is here probably
copying an older recipe.

Footnote 62:

There is a good example, a bearded man, in the Glass Room at the
British Museum. Some clever imitations were made in the eighteenth
century.

Footnote 63:

As examples of this, note the gladiator glass and the _Anatoli
Gaudens_ portrait from the Tyskiewitz collection. This last example,
of quite exceptional merit, has been recently acquired by the British
Museum.

Footnote 64:

I am inclined to connect the cemetery glass as a whole with the
Judaising Christians of the old narrow school, who had long been
settled in Rome near to the Porta Capena and in the Transteverine
quarters, not far, that is to say, from the principal cemeteries.

Footnote 65:

Formerly in the Basilewski collection, now, I think, in the
Hermitage, St. Petersburg. This cup, which is also of interest for
the inscriptions on it in a local dialect of debased Latin, was found
near the site of Doclea, to the north of the Lake of Scutari.

Footnote 66:

In the Theodosian code, however, we find, among the craftsmen who are
freed from personal taxes, _Vitrearii, vasa vitrea conflantes_.

Footnote 67:

A disc of this description, pierced to receive glass cups, is
apparently an earlier form than the well-known corona, the
_polycandela_, so long in use in Christian churches. The hanging
disc, like so many things Roman and Byzantine, would seem to have
survived among the Saracens; something like it may still be found in
old Arab houses in Cairo. Elsewhere Paul, speaking of the single
lights in St. Sophia, describes them as silver vessels, _like a
balance-pan_—in the centre of each rests a cup of ‘well burning
oil.’ This passage, I think, throws some light on certain
‘balance-pan’ dishes of rock crystal and glass, preserved in St.
Mark’s treasury at Venice (see below, p. 101).

Footnote 68:

Its relation to the Queen of Sheba we may dismiss. The other two uses
that have been assigned to this bowl may be reconciled, if we accept
one of the earliest forms of the tradition of the Holy Graal. (I
follow here the account given by the late Mr. Thomas Arnold in an
article by him in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.) According to this
tradition, Joseph of Arimathea, at the time of the Crucifixion,
proceeded first to the upper room where the Last Supper had been
celebrated and found there the shallow bowl that had held the Paschal
Lamb. Taking this vessel with him, and returning to the scene of the
Crucifixion, he received in it drops of blood from the side of our
Lord. The double service of the bowl is the essence of this
tradition. Mr. Arnold, _à propos_ of the traditionary connection of
the Holy Graal with Glastonbury, quotes from Malmesbury a statement
that in his day an altar called ‘sapphirus,’ which had been brought
from Palestine to St. Davids, had been re-discovered. This may well
have been a slab of glass similar to that still preserved at
Reichenau. I have been unable to find any further reference to this
‘sapphirus’ altar.

Footnote 69:

_Il Tesoro di San Marco illustrato da Antonio Passini, Canonico della
Marciana._ Published by Ferd. Ongania, Venice, 1886. As in both the
text and the plates of this work the glass is mixed up with objects
of rock crystal and other materials, I give a reference to the plates
on which vessels of glass are reproduced.

Footnote 70:

This dish should probably rather find a place among the hanging lamps
of the next section. There are others of these so-called chalices and
patens of which the original use is very problematical.

Footnote 71:

This vase has been classed by Von Czihak with the so-called Hedwig
glasses (see below, p. 115); the resemblance, however, to the German
glasses is small.

Footnote 72:

Note in this connection the inscription on the mounting of the lamp
of carved glass (IV. 1 in our list) in St. Mark’s treasury, referring
to a bishop of Iberia, the modern Georgia. Not until the reign of
Justinian was the Roman empire extended to the east coast of the
Euxine—to Lazica and Colchis.

Footnote 73:

The contents of these graves have been described in a paper read
before the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. C. H. Read (_Archæologia_,
vol. lv.).

Footnote 74:

I use the term Saxon here to include also the Angles and Jutes.

Footnote 75:

In this widely spread class of jewellery, both true enamel and glass
are conspicuous by their general absence.

Footnote 76:

I have seen, in the collection of Mr. Kennard, the lower part of a
vase of thickish clear green glass, from an Anglo-Saxon tomb. On this
the tails of the well-formed prunts _sweep downwards diagonally_; on
the head of each is a rosette Such a form one may perhaps connect
with the ‘_hroden ealo woege_,’ the ‘twisted ale-cups’ of Beowulf’s
poem (cf. Hartshorne, p. 24).

Footnote 77:

Note in this tapestry, in more than one feast scene, the swaggering
action with which the guests raise the drinking-horns, either to
drink from the larger end or to let the liquid pass into the mouth
from the pointed extremity.

Footnote 78:

In the sacristy of the church at Mittelzell, where I recently had an
opportunity of examining it. This is an irregular oblong slab, about
twenty inches in length, weighing about thirty pounds. One surface is
nearly even, as if the molten glass had been poured out upon a table.

Footnote 79:

The Slavonic tribes before their conversion do not appear to have had
any knowledge of glass; it is not found in any of their tombs to the
east of the Elbe.

Footnote 80:

Apart from a few examples of enamelled glass of Saracenic origin
preserved in church treasuries; these probably came in somewhat later.

Footnote 81:

There are, beside these, five other glasses that may be connected
with this saint, but these are of a different character. Hedwig was
the wife of a Silesian prince who lived in the early part of the
thirteenth century. On the occasion of a misunderstanding with her
husband, arising from the lady’s refusal to drink anything but water
at her meals, the difficulty was surmounted by a miracle. St. Hedwig
was canonised in 1257, and was soon recognised as the _landes
patronin_ both of Silesia and Poland.

Footnote 82:

For example, on Gallic and British coins derived from Greek types, or
again on some English porcelain where an Oriental design has been
unintelligently copied.

Footnote 83:

_Les Origines de l’Alchimie_, 1885; _La Chimie des Anciens et du
Moyen Age_, 1889; _La Chimie au Moyen Age_, 1893.

Footnote 84:

This I shall refer to later on as the pseudo-Heraclius; it contains
several sections treating on the manufacture of glass, and forms a
valuable commentary on the decidedly earlier treatise of Theophilus.

Footnote 85:

Compare with this account the furnace now used in Northern India
described in Chapter XXI.

Footnote 86:

At South Kensington, in the Indian section, may be seen some native
distilling apparatus of glass, which follows very closely in the line
of these old Syrian drawings.

Footnote 87:

For the relation of Theophilus to his predecessor, Bishop Meinhart of
Paderborn, and to the Greek influence still prevailing in Germany,
see the Introduction by Albert Ilg to his edition of this treatise in
the _Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte_, vol. vii.; Vienna, 1874.

Footnote 88:

Much of this latter sort, however, was to be greedily absorbed in
Germany at a later date.

Footnote 89:

Are we to take this acquaintance with the Agia Sophia in a material
as well as a symbolical sense? Does Theophilus in this passage claim
to have visited Constantinople?

Footnote 90:

Not long after this a German poet writes to this effect—

‘_Gott hat erschaffen manchen Mann
Der Glas aus Asche machen kann
Und dass kan schöpfen wie er will._’

Footnote 91:

This is, of course, the ‘marver,’ not yet of iron as in the
thirteenth-century writer (cf. p. 76).

Footnote 92:

From the expression used, ‘_quam fistulam_,’ etc., it would seem that
the identical hollow tube was used again and not replaced by a simple
rod—the _pontil_; but perhaps this is merely a slip on the part of
Theophilus.

Footnote 93:

The literal statement is that ‘the painted gold figures are covered
with the clear fusible glass of which we have already spoken’; over
this again the coloured designs are painted—a curious and elaborate
process. We must, however, remember that although Theophilus may have
seen specimens of Byzantine enamelled glass, he can have had little
opportunity of learning how they were made.

Footnote 94:

There _annuli_ probably included also bracelets or bangles of glass.
We may perhaps compare them to those still worn by Arab women.
Margaret, Countess of Flanders, had in 1252 a casket full of glass
rings.

Footnote 95:

Yet in France much of the old glass was sacrificed at the Revolution
in order _to extract the gold_. See Appert, _Les Vitraux Anciens_,
for the composition and colour of mediæval window-glass.

Footnote 96:

Early in the eleventh century, a saintly German bishop, Bernard of
Hildesheim, is said to have made for himself a chalice of glass, and
a few years later a bishop of Auxerre founded three prebendal seats,
one for a painter, one for a goldsmith, and a third for a
glass-worker (_vitrier_—probably a maker of glass windows). We must
not, then, be surprised at the acquaintance with the practical arts
shown by the monk Rugerus (Theophilus).

Footnote 97:

M. Schuermans, however, brings forward passages to show that in early
days the term was applied to a small flask carried about the person.

Footnote 98:

What little we have comes mostly from the Venetian archives. We hear
already in the fourteenth century of German hawkers of glass, and of
the skill of the Germans in making glass mirrors.

Footnote 99:

To hollow ware, that is to say. Stained glass for windows, of which
examples still survive, was made in England in the fifteenth century,
and probably even earlier.

Footnote 100:

Compare with these the four hundred and thirty-two _urinalia_
supplied to the Dauphin of the Viennois for a year’s consumption.
Glass, it would appear from an epigram of Martial, was put to a
similar use by the Romans.

Footnote 101:

The village of Kirdford is situated about four miles to the north of
Petworth.

Footnote 102:

It stood for long against the wall of the South Ambulatory. As in
this position the paintings appeared to be suffering from the damp,
it has lately been removed to the Jerusalem Chamber.

Footnote 103:

A fifteenth-century plaque at South Kensington is possibly an
exception. Here the gold leaf lies between two sheets of glass, the
lower one of considerable thickness, but how these sheets are united
I cannot say.

Footnote 104:

In shape they resemble the little bottles in which attar of roses is
still sold in Oriental bazaars, and this resemblance may give a hint
as to their original use.

Footnote 105:

Schefer, _Relation des voyages de Nassiri Khosrau_(1035-1042 A.D.),
pp. 42 and 46. The information from Arab writers collected in the
notes to this work must not be confused with what Khosrau himself
says. There is, however, one important reference to our material in
the text:—we are told that glass, transparent and pure as the
emerald, was sold in Cairo by the weight. This was in Fatimi times.
There may, perhaps, have been some confusion with the glass weights
themselves, of which we have spoken above.

Footnote 106:

We may find, perhaps, what is the last reference to Alexandria in
connection with glass in ‘the most precious vase, _Alexandrini
generis_,’ that the Emperor Henry II. (_d._ 1024 A.D.) presented to
the Abbot of Cluny. This was probably an example of sculptured glass,
which may have come to Henry through his relationship with the
Byzantine emperors.

Footnote 107:

Gustav Schmoranz, _Old Oriental Gilt and Enamelled Glass Vessels_,
1899. One hundred and forty glass lamps are accounted for, of which
number exactly half are now in the Museum of Arab Art at Cairo. The
remaining pieces—goblets, bottles, etc.—only amount to forty-four,
but these are nearly all in European museums or private collections.

Footnote 108:

There was only one, for instance, in the Slade collection. There are
now seven in the British Museum and nine at South Kensington, without
counting the smaller specimens.

Footnote 109:

For the important bearing of this point, see my book on Porcelain in
this series.

Footnote 110:

Note that the use of cobalt as an _overglaze_ enamel on Chinese
_porcelain_ did not come in until the seventeenth century, and that
this enamel at first gave more trouble than any other.

Footnote 111:

I use this term for the writing with tall perpendicular strokes,
although much of it, I understand, should not strictly bear the name.

Footnote 112:

A good example may be seen in a large picture of the Circumcision by
Marco Marziale in the National Gallery.

Footnote 113:

Glass lamp-cups of this form are still made in India; Mr. Forrest,
ex-Director of Records at the India Office, has shown me a specimen
brought from Gujerat. Glass lamps of a similar construction seem to
have been in use in bedrooms in Germany in the fifteenth century;
they may be seen in contemporary pictures.

Footnote 114:

The magnificent specimen of enamelled glass with geometrical
decoration, which belonged to the late Baron Alphonse de Rothschild,
figured in Schmoranz’s work as a lantern, is, of course, a stand for
a candle. It resembles in every respect, except material, the
well-known cylindrical candle-stands of inlaid bronze.

Footnote 115:

A good example of the first is reproduced by M. Gerspach (_L’Art de
la Verrerie_, p. 100) from a manuscript of the famous story-teller
Hariri. For an instance of the second, see the side subjects on the
Würzburg flask in the British Museum.

Footnote 116:

The construction, indeed, closely resembles that of the Cairo
cup-lamp described above.

Footnote 117:

The oldest of these ballads only dates back to the time of the Duke
of Wharton, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The ‘wicked
Duke,’ it is said, when in his cups would toss the ‘Luck’ into the
air and catch it in his hand.

Footnote 118:

This is the goblet figured in Schmoranz, p. 29. It belonged at the
time, he tells us, to an unknown collector, who gave £1600 for it at
Christie’s in 1881.

Footnote 119:

Illustrated in _Archæologia_, vol. lviii., where it forms the
starting-point of the paper by Mr. C. H. Read, that I have quoted
from above.

Footnote 120:

In this respect differing from the other cup in this collection to
which the same date and origin are ascribed. I refer to the
Aldrevandini goblet, with the armorial shields, described in the next
chapter. The glass of this cup is already quite of a Venetian type,
approaching to a true _cristallo_.

Footnote 121:

He reigned during the temporary deposition of Malek Nasir.

Footnote 122:

This lamp also has, I think, passed into the Pierpont Morgan
collection.

Footnote 123:

The badge of a sword is very frequent upon these later lamps, but it
can hardly in all cases refer to the same sultan or emir.

Footnote 124:

The only other lamp, as far as I know, that has been obtained from
Syria, is one from Damascus, presented to the British Museum by the
late Sir A. W. Franks. This in no way differs from the ordinary type
except in the enamelled decoration at the base of the handles. A lamp
of quite normal description at South Kensington has also been
attributed, but very doubtfully, to the same Syrian town.

Footnote 125:

The words on the document as I read them are ‘_parte schietti et
parte à rediselli_.’ The ambassador at the same time sends an order
for window-glass to be used in the new palace that Ali Pasha is
building; and finally, for ‘_uno di quelli ferali [fenali?] over fano
di salla grande_'—probably some kind of chandelier.

Footnote 126:

We should have looked rather for some trace of Oriental influence.
Freeman (_Historical Geography_, p. 240) speaks of the marquisate as
‘a feudal state, whose rulers had in various ways a singular
connection with the East. As Marquesses of Montferrat they claimed
the crown of Jerusalem and had worn the crown of Thessalonica.’
Again, early in the fourteenth century the marquisate passed to a
branch of the imperial house of Palæologus.

Footnote 127:

The _Consolato dell’ Arte_ was yearly elected on Christmas Day amid
great festivities. In the statutes of the _Arte Vitrea_, drawn up or
revised in 1495, we have apparently the earliest documentary evidence
for these glass-works. These statutes are given in full in Bordoni’s
_L’Arte Vetraria in Altare_, Savona, 1884.

Footnote 128:

The results are perhaps best summed up in the memoir contributed in
1872 by Cecchetti to the _Reale Instituto Veneto_. See also the
_Monographia della Vetraria Veneziana_, the combined work of Zanetti,
Cecchetti, and others, drawn up upon the occasion of the Viennese
Exhibition of 1873. Vicenzo Zanetti, in his account of the _Museo
Civico_ at Murano, gives a list of more than three hundred works
(including manuscripts, drawings, and pamphlets) treating upon
Venetian glass.

Footnote 129:

A possible exception has been found in a document of the year 1090,
in which a certain citizen adds the word _fiolarius_ to his name.
This word, which in the Venetian tongue generally takes the form
_friolaro_, is of some importance to us. In Dante the word _fiala_ is
used for a wine-bottle: ‘_il vin della sua fiala_,’ Par. x. 88.

Footnote 130:

As early as 1175 it is mentioned that the Venetians had certain
privileges in the _Daciones de Vitro_ at Tyre.

Footnote 131:

Ayas, Tripoli, Tyre, and Acre remained under Frankish rule during the
greater part of the thirteenth century. Acre, the last to fall, was
taken by the Saracens in 1291.

Footnote 132:

My point is that in this beautiful cup the scheme of decoration is
essentially French, while the technique of both glass and enamels
points to a Saracenic place of origin.

Footnote 133:

They have been analysed by Cecchetti in the paper quoted above.

Footnote 134:

This word was the source of much embarrassment to Merret, the
translator of Neri’s little manual on glass, of which I shall have
more to say further on. Quite regardless of the context, he
throughout his translation rendered the words ‘_canne di
conterie_’—that is to say, the glass rods from which the beads were
made—as ‘rails for counting houses’!

Footnote 135:

The term ‘bead’ was early transferred from the ‘bid’ or prayer to the
small spherical bodies strung on a cord by which these prayers were
counted, and before the end of the fourteenth century the word was
already used in a secular sense also.

Footnote 136:

These _canne_ are described as ‘_de vero [vetro] commun, Christallini
et colorade de diversi sorti_.’

Footnote 137:

Note in this connection the recent discovery of ‘chevron’ beads at
Treviso, referred to below.

Footnote 138:

Something like the apparatus used for roasting coffee, it would seem.
I do not attempt to give any explanation of the two rival
processes—_a spiedo_ (on a broach or spit) and _a ferracia_. That
attempted by Mr. Nesbitt (_South Kensington Glass_, p. civ.) is not
satisfactory.

Footnote 139:

It is not, I think, generally known that beads were made in the east
of London, early in the last century, by this process—by dropping
off the glass upon a revolving spit or rod of iron (Hartshorne, p.
106).

Footnote 140:

According to Dr. Petrie’s interpretation (see above, Chapter II.). It
is difficult to understand how the elaborate beads found in Etruscan
and Greek tombs—those with satyr masks especially—were built up
without the use of the blow-pipe.

Footnote 141:

Now preserved in the local museum at Treviso, where I lately had an
opportunity of examining them. Nothing was found with them except a
few small rods of coloured glass. It has been suggested that this was
a contraband store, at some time destroyed by fire; but the fragments
are in no case fused together. This parti-coloured glass, we may
note, would be of little value for ‘cullet,’ and defective beads
would therefore be thrown away.

Footnote 142:

A fine specimen has found its way into the collection of Egyptian
antiquities in the British Museum.

Footnote 143:

The term ‘Aggri’ should, perhaps, be reserved for large beads, of
which the colours extend right through the mass, but the term is not
very definitely used in the African trade.

Footnote 144:

Some of this enamelled glass no doubt dates from the early years of
the next century. On the other hand, some of the thin white glass of
capricious forms described in the next chapter may have been made
before the year 1500. Apart from the generally vague ground of shape
and style of decoration, there is no means of fixing the date of
Venetian glass, so that in the absence of costumed figures or of
coats of arms we are often very much in the dark on this point.

Footnote 145:

I have seen, however, in a fourteenth-century manuscript, glasses
with well developed stems carefully depicted.

Footnote 146:

It was on the strength of the armour borne by this figure that M.
Labarte attributed this cup to the early part of the fifteenth
century. I may note that this goblet, as well as the one of green
glass mentioned below, was bought in Italy for a small sum by M.
Debruge Duménil, one of the earliest systematic collectors of
Venetian glass. The elaborate catalogue of his collection, made very
shortly after his death in 1847, by his son-in-law Jules Labarte, is
a valuable record of the Italian art of the Renaissance.

Footnote 147:

James Howell, _Epistolæ Ho-elianæ_.

Footnote 148:

This vessel appears to be sometimes filled, not with water, but with
moist sand or earth.

Footnote 149:

In the Louvre, the nymph of Giorgione’s ‘Fête Champêtre’ holds a jug
of glass of graceful form over the well to the left, and in Titian’s
‘Supper at Emmaus’ in the same gallery, the twisting lines that
surround a decanter with tall neck and handles, suggest a decoration
with _latticinio_.

Footnote 150:

The quotation is from the Appendix to Vicenzo Cervio’s _Il
Trinciante_, Venice, 1593.

Footnote 151:

‘_Ma quando particolarmente se voglion’ far vetri bianchi di smalto
vi s’aggiunge calcina di stagno e questo si chiama latticinio del
quale si fanno opere diverse sopra i vasi di christallo_’ (Garzoni,
_Piazza Universale_, 1585, p. 550).

Footnote 152:

But in the earlier writers this name is given rather to the
imitations of agate—what was afterwards known as _schmelz_ (cf. p.
218).

Footnote 153:

A similar effect is obtained nowadays by means of a salt of uranium,
but as is so often the case in the modern handling of old decorative
systems, the opalescence is generally overdone.

Footnote 154:

Laborde, _Les Émaux au Louvre_, Part II. No. 498, and the same
author’s _Les Ducs de Bourgogne_ (Archives of Lille).

Footnote 155:

In the museum at Murano is, or was, a similar plaque thus described
by Zanetti, ‘_Una grossa piastra col busto incavato del Doge Andrea
Gritti fra le initiali A. G._; _secolo XVI._’ (_Il Museo
Civico-Vetrario di Murano_, 1881).

Footnote 156:

By the eighteenth century, however, they had adopted the German
system. The President De Brosses, in one of the admirable letters
that he wrote from Italy (1739), when describing the manufacture of
mirrors at Murano, gives a vivid account of the cylinder process.

Footnote 157:

Not really steel, of course, but a kind of speculum metal containing
about one part of tin to two of copper. Fioravanti, in his _Specchio
di Scientia Universale_, tells us that this _acciaio_ was made of
equal parts of brass and tin. He contrasts the German and Italian
methods of preparation of glass mirrors, giving the preference to the
former. Fioravanti then speaks of the interest taken in these
mirrors—not by women only—and after balancing the pros and cons, he
concludes that, on the whole—‘_gli specchi son’ mala cosa nelle
case_.’

Footnote 158:

A word that must not be confused with the term _luse_ or _lustro_,
applied by the Venetians to a mirror.

Footnote 159:

There is a magnificent chandelier of this class in the drawing-room
of Mr. Beaumont’s house in Piccadilly. It dates probably from the
early years of the eighteenth century.

Footnote 160:

‘_Notizia delle opere d’arte._’ I quote at second-hand, as I have not
been able to find a copy of this work.

Footnote 161:

The learned Cardanus, physician, mathematician, and astrologer, has a
section on glass both in his _De Subtilitate_ (1551) and in the
somewhat later _De Varietate Rerum_. He is often quoted as an
authority on the subject by contemporary and later writers, but in
spite of many quaint and ingenious reflections I can find little of
practical value in his remarks.

Footnote 162:

Not to be confounded, says the writer, with the stone known as
Magnese, found ‘_nella Magna_’ (Allemania or Germany). ‘Quite other
are the virtues of this stone [magnetic oxide of iron?] when placed
under your pillow, ...’ but for the context I must refer the reader
to the sixty-ninth section of the original work.

Footnote 163:

In the fourth section of the second treatise the author speaks of
‘_azurro della Magna del quale si tinge il vetro_.’ There is also a
section at the end of the first book on the preparation of _azurro
fine_ from _pietro d’azurro ultramarino_, but I do not think that
this has anything to do with the colouring of glass, as it is
associated with recipes for dyeing grey hair of a blonde colour and
for preparing the _acqua virgine_ by which the face is rendered
beautiful. It is difficult to understand what relation the _Acqua di
Philoseophy_ (_sic_—there are several sections so headed at the end
of the treatise) has with the preparation of glass. But all these old
formulists are only too ready to run off at a tangent to discuss
questions of alchemy.

Footnote 164:

In spite of what Milanesi says in his introduction, I strongly
suspect this third treatise to be of a later date than the others;
the whole tone of it seems to smack more of the _cinquecento_ than of
the previous century. At the same time it is inferior to the two
preceding treatises in practical knowledge—indeed it contains much
nonsense.

Footnote 165:

See above, p. 174, for an account of L’Altare.

Footnote 166:

But much the same might be said of the potter’s art; in this case,
however, the artistic history is far more continuous and
inter-connected than in the case of glass.

Footnote 167:

It is not less interesting to hear, in a letter (dated 1572) from the
governor of Poitou, of ‘_Fabian_ Salviate, _escuyer, gentilhomme de
Myrane, païs de Venize, venuz lui et sa famille, en ce païs de
Poictou pour praticquer l’art de la Verrerie_.’ Cf. p. 214. But this
is perhaps an accidental coincidence.

Footnote 168:

This bed of sand extends eastward through the forest of
Fontainebleau, and at the present day it is this sand of
Fontainebleau that the glass-makers of Murano, when they can afford
it, use in preference to all other sources of silica.

Footnote 169:

Truguet, _Les Cris de Paris_—no date, but soon after 1600. _Verre de
pierre_ we may compare to our expression ‘flint’ or ‘pebble glass.’
It has been altered to _verre de bière_ by a recent French writer on
glass, who quotes the cry!

Footnote 170:

It was a Ferro who, as far back as the fourteenth century, taught the
glass-workers at L’Altare the Venetian methods of making glass. The
glass industry of Provence has at the present day been almost
monopolized by the French branch of this family.

Footnote 171:

In the west also, René, who we must remember was head of the house of
Anjou, in consideration of the ‘_gentilesse et noblesse qui est
l’ouvrage de verrerie, et que aussi c’est le bien du pays et de la
chose publique_,’ granted permission for the foundation of
glass-works among the forests of La Vendée, with rights of cutting
wood ‘_au lieu le moins dommaigeable_’ (Gerspach, p. 196).

Footnote 172:

At this time—in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
century—Lorraine was not yet an integral part of France. It formed
part of the Holy Roman Empire, while its trade connections were
rather with the Netherlands and with Italy. See below for the
distinction between _Verres de France_ and _Verres de Lorraine_.

Footnote 173:

The Abbé Boutellier has made a special study of the Nivernais glass,
but I have not had an opportunity of seeing his _Histoire des
Gentilshommes verriers et de la Verrerie de Nevers_.

Footnote 174:

In distinction from the _Verre en tables quarrées_ made in Lorraine.
I am unable to say whether the latter was at so early a date made by
the cylinder process, but the square shape renders this very likely.

Footnote 175:

Among the documents relating to glass, collected by the Baron
Davillier, was the report of the commission of inquiry appointed by
Philip II. at the time (about 1560) when it was proposed to glaze the
many thousand windows of the Escurial. Samples were sent from the
glass-works of Spain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Normandy. The Norman
glass was declared to be the purest. (Quoted by Gerspach, p. 304.)

Footnote 176:

These _canons_, I think, correspond to the Italian _canni_, the glass
rods from which beads were made. We hear of these _canons_ being
supplied to the _Pâternostriers_, who take the place in France of the
_Suppialumi_ of Venice.

Footnote 177:

It seems to me, however, very doubtful whether flint-glass was at
this time necessarily _glass of lead_. I return to the point in the
chapter on English glass.

Footnote 178:

I use the term Bohemian, here as elsewhere, for brevity’s sake. The
more correct expression would be—the frontier lands of Germany and
Bohemia. This will be made clear in the following chapter.

Footnote 179:

So in the important collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at
Brussels, especially strong in examples of ‘winged’ beakers, little
attempt is made to separate the Venetian from the home-made specimens.

Footnote 180:

Attributed to the painter known as ‘The Master of the Death of the
Virgin.’ In other works of this painter, who was working during the
first thirty or forty years of the sixteenth century, we find
examples of _cristallo_ of large size and advanced technique.

Footnote 181:

I do not know why this essentially Teutonic form is described in the
official catalogue as a ‘Venetian green glass goblet.’

Footnote 182:

Riaño, _The Industrial Arts of Spain_. The little that we know, on
the documentary side, of Spanish glass is derived for the most part
from this work, one of the South Kensington handbooks. This may be
supplemented by the information collected shortly before his death by
the Baron Charles Davillier, which has filtered out through various
channels; some of it may be found in M. Gerspach’s work on glass (pp.
100-105). M. Schuermans also has not forgotten Spain in his records
of the wandering Italian glass-makers (_Bulletin_ xxix., pp. 133-147).

Footnote 183:

In 1324 the glass-makers were ordered to remove their furnaces from
the inside of the town (Riaño, p. 234).

Footnote 184:

A surviving vessel of this shape, as well as some examples taken from
pictures by Bouts and by the so-called Mostaert, is illustrated by
Mr. Hartshorne (_Old English Glasses_, p. 64). Other similar bowls
were to be found in the Thewald collection (dispersed at Cologne,
October 1903): in Germany such vessels are known as _halbe
Wurzelbecher_. The form was imitated also at Venice, as we may see in
a bowl, in this case duplicated, in the Waddesdon Room in the British
Museum.

Footnote 185:

Quite a number of little vessels of this dark green glass, ornamented
with prunts and quillings of various forms, have been dredged up from
the Scheldt at Antwerp, or found in the excavation of new docks. They
may be studied in the museum now established in the Steen.

Footnote 186:

The term prunt should perhaps be restricted to those cases where the
‘blob’ is sufficiently large and hot to melt away the subjacent
glass. When this is not the case, unless we adopt the German word
_Warze_ or wart, the term ‘stud’ applies better. If again the ‘blob’
of hot glass is merely dropped on the surface it may be termed a
‘tear.’

Footnote 187:

Every art, he says, must adapt itself to the country where it is
practised; and so we Germans have set all kinds of knobs and rings on
our glasses, so that they may be somewhat stronger and more lasting,
and be more easily held in the hands of fuddled and clumsy folk
(‘_von vollen und ungeschicklichen Leuten_’). This quotation is from
one of the Lutheran pastor’s ‘sermons’ on glass (see below, p. 262).
Mathesius lived in what has been called ‘the classical age of German
thirst,’ and was ever ready to gird at the failings of his
contemporaries in this respect.

Footnote 188:

The seventeenth-century _roemer_ has been revived in Germany of late,
and at Ehrenfeld, near Cologne, this form, as well as other old
models, is skilfully if somewhat mechanically copied in both
bottle-green and bluish-green glass.

Footnote 189:

This later arrangement is well seen in a still-life piece in the
Jones collection, signed ‘J. W. Preyer, 1854.’ Compare the carefully
painted _roemer_ in this picture—the solid foot wound round with a
thin stringing—with the seventeenth-century glass in the picture by
Jan van de Velde referred to below.

Footnote 190:

Already in the fifteenth century the _vitra Veneciana_ are
distinguished from the _Vitrum silvestrum sive montanum_, otherwise
_wald-glas_.

Footnote 191:

For this district we have in the excellent work of E. von
Czihak—_Schlesische Gläser_, Breslau, 1891—a better source of
information than is available for any other of the glass-making
centres of Germany or Bohemia.

Footnote 192:

Published by Froben at Bâle in 1556; the dedication, however, is
dated 1551.

Footnote 193:

So Agricola states in the very last paragraph of his book. As this
passage seems to have been sometimes misinterpreted, I will quote it
in full from the original Latin edition. He mentions the various
shapes that glass may be made to assume, and continues:—

‘_Qualia opera multa praeclara et admiranda cum quondam biennio
agerem Venetiis contemplatus sum; in primis verò anniversariis diebus
festis ascensionis domenicae cùm venalia essent apportata Murano; ubi
vitrariae officinae omnium celeberrimae sunt: quas vidi cum aliâs,
tum maxime cum certis de causis Andream Naugerium in aedibus, quas
ibi habebat, uno cum Francisco Asulano convenerim._’

From this passage it would appear that there was a great sale of
Muranese glass in Venice on the feast of the Ascension (cf. above, p.
216). Is this Naugerius, at whose house at Murano Agricola visited,
to be identified with the famous poet and orator Andrea Navagero,
from whose travels in Spain I have quoted on page 249?

Footnote 194:

_Sarepta oder Bergpostil_, Nürnberg, 1562.

Footnote 195:

In a contemporary vocabulary _ritzle_ is interpreted as ‘_aurum quo
tingitur vitrum rubro colore_.’ In a passage on Venetian glass in his
early work, _De Naturâ Fossilium_ (1546), Agricola speaks of the use
of gold to colour glass of the ruddy colour of the carbuncle.

Footnote 196:

I quote this passage, as it is much more to the point as regards
German glass than what is to be found in Agricola, who gives us
rather his theories as to the materials used by the Venetians to make
their _cristallo_.

Footnote 197:

A separate muffle-stove for this purpose was, it would thus appear,
not yet available.

Footnote 198:

This part of the decoration we may indeed regard as a survival of the
Venetian influence that was dominant in the middle of the sixteenth
century. Of this I have already spoken.

Footnote 199:

This flower, the _Mai-glöcklein_, is frequently seen on German
enamelled glass, and is the more conspicuous as it is almost the only
flower realistically treated. I may note that M. Schuermans would
appear to regard the presence of these _tiges de muguet_, executed in
enamel, as essentially a sign of Low Country origin; they are,
however, frequently accompanied by inscriptions in German.

Footnote 200:

Notice to the heraldic right of the birds’ heads a shield bearing a
cross and the inscription _Potestat zu Rom_.

Footnote 201:

On a small _humpen_, or rather _kanne_, of this class in the British
Museum, dated 1611, we find only three secular electors—those of
Saxony, the Palatinate, and Brandenburg; the place of the fourth
(Bohemia) is occupied by the imperial eagle.

Footnote 202:

Herr von Czihak mentions that he has seen in the museum of Freiberg,
in Saxony, a covered _humpen, painted in oil-colours_, protected
apparently with some kind of lacquer. The glass is dark green, and
the Gothic character both of the metal cover and of the painting
points to a date not later than 1500. The subject, according to a
quaint inscription, has relation to ‘_Eneaspius der Babst_’ (the Pope
Pius II., 1458-1464), and to the ‘_Roemischer Kaiser Friderich der
dritt_’ (_Schlesische Gläser_, p. 101).

Footnote 203:

What Mathesius states is, ‘The white [_i.e._ colourless] glasses have
now become common over which white threads of white colour are
carried; these glasses are made in Silesia.’ Herr von Czihak (p. 96)
says that he has seen many such glasses of somewhat rude make in that
province. It will be remembered that some of the _vetro di trina_
made at Murano is also only superficially decorated.

Footnote 204:

On the other hand, the technique of the cemetery glasses differs
essentially, as in these the two plates of glass are fused together,
on the edges at least (p. 92).

Footnote 205:

We often find similar defects developed on glass lenses. To ensure
achromatism and accuracy of definition these lenses are built up of
two layers, one of crown, the other of flint glass, cemented together
by a varnish.

Footnote 206:

This art was carried to the highest perfection in Holland by a group
of cultured amateurs in the seventeenth century (see p. 295).

Footnote 207:

We hear, it is true, of water-wheels for grinding glass at Schwäbisch
Grund, in Bavaria, in the second half of the sixteenth century. In
these mills large beads (perhaps we may think of the chevron beads
from Murano in this connection) were ground for exportation to the
Indies by way of Antwerp (Von Czihak, p. 125). I may note that there
is no reference to the cutting of glass in either Agricola or
Mathesius.

Footnote 208:

It is interesting to compare with this work the carving—identical in
technique—on reliquaries of rock crystal of Carlovingian date. Of
these a remarkable example may be seen in the Mediæval Room in the
British Museum.

Footnote 209:

The Schatzkammer at Munich is rich in examples of carved rock crystal
of this period, but I can find few examples of carved glass in it. In
the Imperial Museum in Vienna may be seen a superb series carved in
both materials—the finest of these come from the Schatzkammer.

Footnote 210:

Lehmann died in 1622, and the elder George Schwanhart in 1667.

Footnote 211:

Compare with this the complaints, made at this time or a little
later, of the artistic and social decadence of the glass-engravers in
Bohemia and Silesia (p. 285).

Footnote 212:

On the early use of hydrofluoric acid I shall have something to say a
little further on.

Footnote 213:

This is rendered in the Latin edition ‘_inque illarum exaltatione ad
magnum ascendit gradum_.’ It should, perhaps, be translated ‘to a
high pitch of excellence.’

Footnote 214:

There is an exquisitely engraved covered beaker of this period at
South Kensington bearing the arms of the Elector of Trèves (Plate
XLII.).

Footnote 215:

Especially by Doppelmayr in his _Historische Nachricht von der
Nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern_, Nürnberg, 1730. A
pretentious work, written in the Frenchified German of the day, and
very inferior as an authority to Sandrart.

Footnote 216:

It was here that was first developed that hybrid type of
drinking-glass which passed over to England early in the eighteenth
century. In these glasses the engraved bowl carries us back to
Germany, and the air or opaque twisted stem to the _vetro di trina_
of Venice.

Footnote 217:

Quite early in the eighteenth century we find an account of a process
by which a gas possessing the property of attacking glass may be made
by steeping the ‘hesphorus’ or ‘Bohemian emerald’ in spirits of
nitre. As we are told that this ‘hesphorus’ when heated emits a green
light, we may safely identify it with fluor-spar (fluoride of
calcium).

Footnote 218:

A circular plaque of this character, with a pious inscription, in the
Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, has been ascribed to Henry Schwanhart.
It is dated 1686 (reproduced by Gerspach, p. 266).

Footnote 219:

We must remember that at this time little distinction was drawn
between the researches of the chemist and the alchemist.

Footnote 220:

The ruby glass of our old Gothic churches was, however, without
exception obtained from copper. But the belief that it contained gold
led in France to the destruction of much of this glass at the time of
the Revolution.

Footnote 221:

This book may be best consulted in the French translation, said to be
by the Baron D’Holbach (Paris, 1752). Here we have in its final form
the little book of Neri, which has passed through the translator’s
crucible as many as four times—from Italian to English, then to
Latin, to German, and finally to French. For there was, too, an
Amsterdam edition in Latin (1668) which came between the English and
Kunckel’s version. But, unlike the gold of the alchemist, the work
really increased in value during these transformations. Several
curious treatises, in the manner of the time, half alchemistic, half
scientific, are to be found at the end of the French translation,
including a rendering into French of Orschall’s _Sol sine Veste_.

Footnote 222:

The somewhat obscure relations of these two men, Kunckel and
Orschall, with Cassius, the reputed discoverer of the purple that
goes by his name (as well as with the son of the latter), is
explained by Beckmann (_History of Inventions_, vol. i. p. 126).

Footnote 223:

If in the case of the bottle of ruby glass, with the arms of Saxony
and the initials J. G., also from the Slade collection (No. 870),
these letters are to be referred to the Elector John George
(1656-80), Kunckel must have perfected his invention at an early date.

Footnote 224:

There is a portrait of her in the National Gallery by Jan Lievens.
See, for some account of her strange life, the note in the Official
Catalogue (p. 305). Another supposed portrait of this lady in the
same collection is by Gerard Dou.

Footnote 225:

The ‘Beaker with the seasons’ in the British Museum (Plate XLIII.) is
an example of the more elaborate work of these Dutch designers with
the diamond. For though the inscription on this glass is in English,
the decoration is undoubtedly by a member of the school of Roemer
Vischer. The beaker is dated 1663.

Footnote 226:

Strictly speaking, the marks on the surface of the glass are rather
of the nature of short scratches or dashes than true dots.

Footnote 227:

For this Wolf’s glass, as it is called in Holland, see the catalogue
of the Rijks Museum. In this Museum, too, a portrait of Greenwood may
be found.

Footnote 228:

A more recent work—the _English Table Glasses_, by Mr. Percy
Bate—is concerned with little else than a minute classification of
these wine-glasses.

Footnote 229:

One of the early Lorrainers (see below) speaks of the native glass of
England as made from _fougère et ronces_.

Footnote 230:

But it is recorded that a Chiddingfold glass-maker (_à propos_ of the
introduction of Lorrainers) confessed that he could not make
window-glass—only ‘mortars, bottles, and orinaux.’ I cannot accept
the explanation of the last word as ‘water globes placed in front of
rushlights’ (see _Sussex Glass_, by Charles Dawson, _Antiquary_,
1905); like the vrynells mentioned above, it came through the French
from the mediæval Latin _urinalia_. Compare the list of objects given
on p. 134.

Footnote 231:

According to the Rev. A. W. C. Hallen (_Scottish Antiquary_, 1893)
there were four noble stocks of glass-makers in Lorraine. These were
the families of Hennezel (which claimed a Bohemian descent), of
Thietry, of Du Thisac, and of Le Houx. So in Normandy we find the
names of De Bongar, De Caquery, Le Vaillant, and De Brossard.
Representatives of nearly all these families appear to have come to
England before the end of the sixteenth century, and their names,
often strangely corrupted, have been unearthed from parish registers
and other documents in many parts of England. The Lorrainers, at
least, seem to have been all of them Calvinists.

Footnote 232:

There had been an earlier unsuccessful attempt at introducing Italian
methods, of which I shall have to speak shortly. The Frenchmen do not
seem to have come into contact with Verzelini, who was at the time
making Venetian glass in London (see below).

Footnote 233:

We may, however, probably identify the Antwerp merchant, Jean Carré,
with the ‘John Carry, M^r of y^e Glashouse,’ who was buried at
Alford, in Surrey, in 1572.

Footnote 234:

The history of their wanderings has been pieced together chiefly
through the researches of Mr. Glazebrook (see his privately printed
_Collections for the Genealogy of the noble families of De Hennezel,
etc._, 1877); of Mr. Hallen in the _Scottish Antiquary_, 1893; and of
Mr. Holmes in the _Antiquary_, 1894.

Footnote 235:

It is just possible, remembering the many exchanges of presents
between Henry and Francis, that a part at least of this collection
may have had some connection with the ‘_quatre cens beaux verres de
Venise gentillisez des plus jolies gayetez que verriers sçauroient
inventer_,’ which were in 1532 in the possession of Robertez,
treasurer to the French king (Nesbitt, _South Kensington Catalogue_,
p. clix).

Footnote 236:

For example, in an abortive act brought into the House in 1585, but
not passed. Quoted by Mr. Hartshorne, p. 159.

Footnote 237: