Murano

This guide to Murano covers Venice's 1391 order moving every glass furnace onto the island, officially against fire but really to keep its craftsmen under watch, and the strict penalties awaiting anyone who tried to leave without permission. You'll hear how those same men were showered with noble privileges even as they lived under threat, and about Angelo Barovier's fifteenth-century hunt for a way to make glass truly clear. It follows the island's furnaces from that bargain up through the workshops still firing today.