The Glass of Venice

Shopping for Venetian glass and Murano chandeliers—plus other classic Venice gifts like lace and Carnival masks

Venetian Glass

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» THE VENICE BOOKSHELF

A glass shop in Venice. (Photo by Tarik Ajanovic)I've heard tell that there are more than 1,000 glass shops in the San Marco district alone.

That's a lot of glasswares.

It's also not surprising to anyone who has walked the streets of Venice, where every little hole-in-the-wall shop and big, touristy boutique seems to sport a display of delicate and colorful examples of the glassmaker's art.

Quality varies tremendously, and many of the items are actually machine-produced or crafted anywhere from Eastern Europe to Taiwan, but the best rule of thumb is simply to buy it if you like it and to blazes with its provenance.

You'll find examples of the triumvirate of Venetian craft specialties—glass, lace, and Carnival masks—plastered everywhere about town.

The Main Drag of Shopping
For a simple shopping stroll along one of Venice's premier (and priciest) avenues, head out of Piazza San Marco at the clock tower onto Le Mercerie. This route, lined with fancy boutiques and souvenir shops, is a series of streets whose names change constantly—but are always prefaced with the word "mercerie"—and that together thread all the way to the Rialto Bridge.

However, if you're looking for the real thing, or are buying with a collector's eye, you'll have to shell out big bucks to ensure quality.

Here are some of the top emporia for each art, where every piece on display is guaranteed hand crafted by Venetian artisans.

The crafts of Venice

Venetian Glass

For glass, you really should head out to Murano—but most of the great glass-makers also have showrooms in downtown Venice:

Venini is at Piazzetta dei Leoncini, off the left flank of Basilica di San Marco (www.venini.it).
Pauly & Co is at Ponte Consorzi, just behind the Doge's Palace, although they also have boutique shops on Piazza San Marco (www.pauly.it).
Salviati is right on Piazza San Marco (www.salviati.com).

Venetian lace

For lace, your dealer is Jesurum, on Calle Larga XXII Marzo, a few blocks west of Piazza San Marco just over the bridge on the right (www.jesurum.it)—though you'll find better deals on the famous lace-making island of Burano.

Carnevale masks

At Carnevale (Carnival) time, don papier-mâché or leather masks made by the Laboratorio Artigiano Maschere, at Barbaria delle Tole, in the Castello district.

Tips

Learn to make Venetian glass
Want to try your own hand at making mosaics out of Venetian glass? The maestros of the Orsini studio run courses lasting from 3 days to 2 weeks at their Cannaregio workshop (www.orsoni.com).Go to the source: The best blown glass is actually out on the island of Murano, which is where "Venetian" glass originated.
Haggle: Don't be afraid to bargain, especially if you're buying more than one item.
Let them mail it home for you. They have loads of experience packing glass so it doesn't break. Would you really carry the thing around in your bag from hotel to hotel, running with it to catch trains and slinging it into the trunk of your rental car, only then to entrust your delicate glass baubles to the airline baggage handlers? Nope. Accept the shipping cost as part of the price of buying the glass.
Buy with your instincts: If your idea of the perfect blown-glass souvenir is a tiny glass gondola, or a touristy glass Carnival mask, or even a glass Homer Simpson (with or without pornographically enormous phallus), that's precisely what you should buy. Be happy with your purchase. When I was 11, I bought—from some nondescript Venetian glass shop—a tiny black cat and spent the next two years (and several moves) carefully keeping its impossibly delicate glass whiskers, thinner than a human hair, from snapping off.
Gift suggestion: Blown glass Christmas tree ornaments are both very Venetian and quite classy.

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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

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