1. Vases -- 2. Decanters, covered jars -- 3. Plates, bowls, ashtrays -- 4. Drinkware, tableware -- 5. Figural, novelty, lighting.

This book offers the reader a comprehensive and visually fascinating excursion into the history of Venetian glass from 1900 until today : the most significant period of Muranese glass.

The islands of Murano, in the lagoon of Venice, have been a sheltered community of glass artists for at least 700 years. With 250 stunning color photographs of Murano glass art and a detailed text that includes historical informaltion and family trees, this book is original in its comprehensive presentation of the artists, both past and present.

Students and scholars of the Italian Renaissance easily fall under the spell of its achievements: its self-confident humanism, its groundbreaking scientific innovations, its ravishing artistic production. Yet many of the developments in Italian ceramics and glass were made possible by Italy's proximity to the Islamic world. The Arts of Fire underscores how central the Islamic influence was on this luxury art of the Italian Renaissance. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum on view from May 4 to August 5, 2004, The Arts of Fire demonstrates how many of the techniques of glass and ceramic production and ornamentation were first developed in the Islamic East between the eighth and twelfth centuries. These techniques - enamel and gilding on glass and tin-glaze and lustre on ceramics - produced brilliant and colourful decoration that was a source of awe and admiration, transforming these crafts, for the first time, into works of art and true luxury commodities. Essays by Catherine Hess, George Saliba, and Linda Komaroff demonstrate early modern Europe's debts to the Islamic world and help us better understand the interrelationships of cultures over time.

Murano Glass and its Collectors in Aesthetic America / Melody Barnett Deusner -- Venetian Mosaics and Glass in the United States, 1860-1917 / Sheldon Barr -- "Where Have Titian's Beauties Gone?" : Sargent and Whistler on the Streets of Venice / Stephanie Mayer Heydt -- Interweaving Worlds : Antique and Revival Lace in Italy and in the United States, 1872-1927 / Diana Jocelyn Greenwold -- Sparks of Genius : American Art and the Appeal of Modern Venetian Glass / Crawford Alexander Mann III -- Biographies / Brittany Emens Strupp, Crawford Alexander Mann III.

Of all the leading Muranese glass factories, Fratelli Toso was among the most versatile and productive, but the least well-known. Where Venini, Barovier & Toso, Aureliano Toso, Archimede Seguso, Salviati, Cenedese, Barbini, and others designed, produced, and marketed fabulous glass, Fratelli Toso focused on design and production. The first company responsible for the revival of Venetian glass, in 1854, Fratelli Toso went on to be one of the major contributors of modern glass design, especially in the 1950s. Designers like Ermanno Toso and Pollio Perelda were rewarded for their accomplishments at Venice Biennali and other international exhibitions. This is the first book devoted to the extraordinary glass produced by Fratelli Toso. With over 400 color photographs of 19th and early 20th century murrine glass, 20th century factory production, and unique art glass; history of the company, chronology, detailed captions, bibliography, index, and value guide this book will be indispensable to the collector, dealer, and researcher.

The studies in this book focus on Italian twentieth-century architecture, in particular design and construction techniques. The descriptions of the worksites and building processes provide a much better and clearer picture of the different modernist styles that existed in Italy; they also reveal the ‘thin red line' that characterised an univocal construction method: mixed masonry enriched (and not replaced) by reinforced concrete – a technique well suited to small artisanal worksites. This was a mild version of modern construction, in line with the role construction played in slowing down an industrialisation process which in Italy was, in itself, slow. Each chapter illustrates a specific aspect of the history of construction and highlights several new issues involving architecture in general: the important tectonic similarities which one way or another link the Littorio style and the several different kinds of rationalisms in the thirties; the continuity between the autarchic experimentation and the techniques used in reconstruction; the connection between the large-scale works designed by engineers and the architectures of the fifties and sixties, which now appear to be one of the mainstays of the unique Italian Style.