Angelo Barovier (, in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

– 1460, in Venice) was an Italian glass artist. Raised in a family with a long tradition of glass working, Barovier was certainly the best-known member and significant for uniting the knowledge passed down for generations as an artist and a scientist. Biographical details about Barovier are few and fragmentary, but relate his ability in the treatment of glass. The humanist Ludovico Carbone, for example, described ''Angelum Venetum'' as ''optimum artificem crystallinorum vasorum'' (''largest producer of crystalline vessels''). Another testimony to the high esteem for Barovier is the decree of

Venetian Republic The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...

in around 1455 that granted him the exclusive rights to production of ''clean glass'', produced by a technique he developed, which he called ''

crystal glass Lead glass, commonly called crystal, is a variety of glass in which lead replaces the calcium content of a typical potash glass. Lead glass contains typically 18–40% (by mass) lead(II) oxide (PbO), while modern lead crystal, historically ...

'' or ''Venetian crystal''. According to some, Barovier should be recognized for originally developing a glass paste called ''

Chalcedony Chalcedony ( or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monoclinic ...

''. At the request of Filaret, architect of the Dukes of Milan, Barovier was summoned in 1455 at the court of Milan in order to suggest the best glass paste to be used in the construction of ''

Sforzinda Sforzinda is a visionary ideal city named after Francesco Sforza, then Duke of Milan. It was designed by Italian Renaissance, Renaissance architect Antonio di Pietro Averlino ( 1400 – 1469), also known as "Averulino" or "Filarete". Layout Alt ...

'', the

ideal city In urban design, an ideal city is the concept of a City planning, plan for a city that has been conceived in accordance with a particular rational or moral objective. Concept The "ideal" nature of such a city may encompass the moral, Spiritua ...

desired by

Francesco Sforza Francesco I Sforza (; 23 July 1401 – 8 March 1466) was an Italian condottiero who founded the Sforza dynasty in the duchy of Milan, ruling as its (fourth) duke from 1450 until his death. In the 1420s, he participated in the War of L'Aqui ...

and designed (but never implemented) by the same Filaret. There are no known true works of Barovier, although some historians assign him a ''wedding Cup ''in the museum of the glass

Murano Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was o ...

, the ''cup of birds'' to Trent and a blue glass in the City Museum Medieval of

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

The Barovier family

The name Barovier comes from the word ''berroviere'', which means an

armiger In heraldry, an armiger is a (natural or juridical) person entitled to use a heraldic achievement (e.g., bear arms, an "armour-bearer") either by hereditary right, grant, matriculation, or assumption of arms. Such a person is said to be armig ...

guarding the captain of the people. It is likely that a Barovier, originally from

Treviso Treviso ( ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 87.322 inhabitants (as of December 2024). Some 3,000 live within the Venetian wall ...

, settled in

– a settlement situated on islands one mile north of Venice – around 1291 when a law of the

required all glass furnaces to be situated in Murano due to the fear of them causing fires in Venice. The oldest representative of the family of which we know is Jacobello (born around 1295), whose sons Antonio and Bartolomeo are mentioned in documents of 1348 as ''fiolari'' (glassmakers). A son of Bartolomeo, Jacopo, remembered as a master glassmaker and a furnace owner, was Angelo’s father.About Angelo Barovier
/ref>

References

Year of birth unknown 1480 deaths Italian glass artists Republic of Venice artists {{Italy-artist-stub

The Barovier family

See also

References