Museo del Vetro

The 17th-century Palazzo Giustinian was built for the bishops of Torcello, but for more than a hundred years it has served as the seat of the glass museum, where you can learn something of Murano’s livelihood.

The archaeological section contains ancient Roman glass; examples range from the 1st–3rd centuries AD and include many glass cinerary urns found in Croatia. Upstairs, beyond the 19th-century mosaics of Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele II, the multilingual description of ancient and modern glassmaking and its styles is a good background to the glass displayed: utilitarian pre-1400s fragments, and some of the earliest surviving Murano glass, including the famous blue Barovier nuptial cup (1480), with its scene of merry frolicking in a basin; some of the earliest Murano crystal, and an example of the lamps that were painted by quattrocento artists.