238 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
made to revive the artistic manufacture of glass at Murano on its ancient scale. 
Assisted by several English gentlemen, Dr. Salviati formed his first company for 
this purpose, which, after becoming successfully established, divided into two — 
that which now goes by his name, and the Venezia-Murano Company, under the 
auspices of Sir Henry Layard and Sir William Drake, Signor Castellani being 
the able director. 
These companies had in reality to begin anew, and feel their way backward 
to the old artistic forms and skill. The first effort was toward a revival of the 
ancient feeling for graceful, elegant, and varied form, without which the superior 
technical processes and chemistry of the nineteenth century would have been 
unavailing. Both companies have made extraordinary progress, as the exposition 
at Milan of 1881 of Italian industrial art clearly showed. Each has succeeded in 
its blown glass, in imitation of or in direct copying the best examples of the ex- 
quisite forms of the sixteenth century, in infusing it with the essential life or soul 
without which all art is dumb, and which speaks so eloquently in the ancient 
glass. With a substance that time acts on so slowly in the best examples, it is 
not easy to discriminate between the originals and copies. In general, however, 
the modern workman has yet something to learn in lightness and evenness and 
solidity of touch, in graceful tournure, and in those almost intangible qualities in 
art which come from long experience and enthusiastic passion. He has not 
yet wholly emancipated himself from the role of mere copyist. But the old genius 
of the Italian race for artistic invention begins to manifest itself. New forms and 
designs are rapidly coming into existence, rivaUng in dexterity and beauty the 
old. I speak only of the real artistic objects made with a view of displaying the 
utmost skill of their best artists. 
The beautiful covered chalice of the Salviati Company done by Leopoldo 
Bearzotti, as a specimen of exquisite enamelling and original design, is a master- 
piece. His copies of the Correr nuptial cup, and the famous Byzantine tazza in 
the treasury of San Marco, and other old pieces, leave something to desire in the 
completeness of their technical execution after the antique manner. It is said 
that eighty thousand francs has been offered for the little San Marco tazza. In 
the Venezia-Murano exhibition there is to be seen a copy, of the exact size of 
the original, done by Edwin Benvizzi for Sir William Drake, and mounted 
in the same manner, which cost four thousand francs, so like it that apart it is 
not easily to be taken as a copy. But the chief specialty of the Venezia-Murano 
Company is their successful reproductions of the famous antique murrhine glass, 
mentioned by Pliny, in imitation of fluor-spars, gems, and precious stones of 
transparent colors, in the form of cut and polished cups, bowls, and dishes. The 
old Venetians, so far as we know, did not attempt to do this on any large scale. 
They are costly to execute, the great bowl at the exposition being priced at five 
thousand francs. It is twelve and a half inches in diameter, of one piece of inter- 
blended amber and turquoise colors, and is the largest ever made. There were 
only two made. The uncut one I secured, and it is in the New York museum. 
The artist who made it says it is even richer in color than the one shown at Milan. 
