Scintillant Venetian Glass bead bracelet, the beads handblown on the island of Murano in the Venice Lagoon sometime in the late 1800s, early 1900s, using coloured foil included in the glass blowing process to create the glittering effect so particular to this type of old Scintillant Venetian glass.
Venice produced glass commercially, for trade, from the 800s, and by the 1200s its increasing dominance of maritime trade in the eastern Mediterranean not only boosted the business of Venetian glass, but also the skills of its production through contact with the then advanced techniques of Damascus and Alexandria. However, Venetian structures of that time were predominantly of wood, and there were too many fires in glass-producing premises.
By law, in the late 1200s glass-producing businesses were all shifted to the lagoon, to the island of Murano, where they flourished, dominating the business of fine glass in Europe for centuries.