The island of Murano in Venice is world famous for its Murano glass and most visitors to Venice come away with at least a piece or two of Murano glass products as a souvenir of their Venice holidays.

Murano glass has been hand crafted by highly skilled Venetian artisans for more than 1,000 years and is highly regarded for its light weight and its wide range of attractive colours.

You don’t have to make a trip to Murano to buy its world-famous glass products. An encounter with these colourful glass is unavoidable.  All around Venice there are shops selling colourful glass pendants, glass jewelry, paperweights, ornaments, etc.

Like most visitors to Venice, I’ve bought pendants, necklaces and trinklets, etc. for friends and family during my trips to Venice. The question I now ask myself is – Were those beautiful Murano glass that I bought as gifts really from Murano?

According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report this week, Italian police have seized 11 million fake Murano glass objects that were being sold in stores in Venice as artisan Murano glass, even though most of them were made in China.

“Between glasses, keychains, small masks, necklaces, pendants and other similar products, the seized items were worth almost 13 million euros (16 million dollars),” the head of Venice’s Financial Police General Walter Manzon told AFP.”

According to the AFP report, Mr. Manzon believes about half of the glass products sold in and around
Venice under the Murano brand are not even made in Italy.

Three Italian companies were busted for the importation and sale of the products from China – two of these from the island of Murano itself. The companies would place Murano labels on the fake objects or mix them with legitimate goods.

The governor of Venice’s Veneto region, Luca Zaia said that the fraud perpetuated exploits cheap labour in countries like China and practises unfair competition.

So, Bravo to the Italian police and the Governor of Venice for their efforts to stamp out the fake products. How disheartening to bring home a souvenir from Venice only to find out later on that it was actually made in China!

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Venetian Carnival masks were originally made of papier-mâché, but these days you can find leather ones as well. The original masks were much simpler in design and decoration and they often had a symbolic and practical function. Nowadays, most masks are made with the application of gesso and gold leaf and are mostly all hand-painted and decorated with natural feathers and gems. You can buy mass-produced cheap masks in the tourist shops in Venice today and these have nothing to do with the original Venetian masks. If you want a good souvenir, go for one of the genuine ones and there are lots to choose from.

These are the different types of masks:

The Bauta is a mask which covers the whole face, with a sharp chin line and no mouth. You may find masks sold as Bautas that cover only the upper part of the face from the forehead to the nose and upper cheeks. Whilst concealing the identity of the wearer, it also enables the person to talk, eat or drink easily. This tends to be the main type of mask worn during the Carnival. Masks like this were also used on many other occasions as a means for hiding the wearer’s identity and social status. This allows the wearer to breach social classes and convention and to intermingle with whomever he or she chooses to mix with. Whilst masks can be useful in pursuit of romantic encounters or to create mischief and amusement, they could also be used for illicit or criminal activities as well. I wonder if there’s an increase in the crime rate at Carnival?

The Moretta is an oval mask of black velvet that was usually worn by women visiting convents. It orginated in France and rapidly became popular in Venice as it brought out the beauty of feminine features. The mask was finished off with a veil.

The Larva, also called the volto mask, is predominantly white, and typically Venetian. It is worn with a tricorn and cloak. The word ‘larva’ was of Latin derivation and was also used for a terrifying mask. Imagine the scary sight of a Venetian all dressed in black with a white mask and a black tricorn, flying past in the moonlight. Like the bauta, the shape of the mask allowed the bearer to breathe and drink easily, thus preserving the wearer’s anonymity at all times. These masks were made of fine wax cloth and being much lighter, they were ideal for wear as they allowed one to eat, dance or flirt.

So next time you go past a mask shop, see if you can find the different types.

Helen

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The Rialto Bridge and the nearby markets are a great place to stroll around and also to shop for gifts and souvenirs.  In the past, this was the city’s commercial quarter and it was here that bankers, brokers and merchants carried out their wheeling and dealing in high finance.  Nowadays, it’s the restaurants, food markets and pasta shops that thrive here and bankers and brokers have been replaced by tourists.

Along the Grand Canal frontage, there are many restaurants to chose from if you get hungry after all the walking.  However, if you prefer something quick and light at lunchtime, there are also cafes in the many side lanes.  We happenend upon this one called New York, New York a few years ago and found it again this time. This is a very small local pub and the owner must have been inspired by the musical, however be warned that there’s nothing New Yorkish about the place.  The cheese sandwich and coffee were good though and gave us the necessary energy to carry on with our exploration.  Along your promenade, you’ll also come across bacaris which are the old-fashioned standing-only bars which are frequented by locals. 

As you wend and weave your way around the back streets, you’ll never know what will unfold upon you.  We came across this shop selling Venetian glass-bead jewellery and I did some serious buying here.  Finding this shop was fortunate for me as I was able to take care of much of my gift shopping here, and very fortunate for the owner as she had just set up shop this month.  She was a very nice lady and as we got chatting she revealed that she was a single mum and was keen to create a business for herself.  Her very attractive glass-bead necklaces ranged from €15 to 50 and made great gifts for friends back home.  It’s great to be able to support nice people like her.

Other shops that caught our attention were the colourful pasta shops.  The bags of pasta look more like bags of lollies and it was so tempting to buy some, however the reminder of baggage weight problems very quickly put an end to such fleeting folly.  The greengrocers had beautiful displays of fruit and vegetables and then there was this candle shop full of colorful displays of the owner’s craft.  Although the gaudily colored candles weren’t to my taste, it was interesting watching the young man carve and create the colorful strips. 

Last but not least was the mask shop.  As it was late, the shop was already closed, otherwise we would have been in there looking to buy one home.

Helen

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