Marco Franzato, glass artist

Hello, I’m Marco Franzato. I’m a Venetian artisan. I create leaded glass windows. I’m the only one in the historical city of Venice, I have a colleague in Murano but there are very few of us left.

What I do is creating artistic glass windows, with the traditional medieval technique and its evolution, the “Tiffany” technique, which was born in the ‘800.

The traditional lead technique uses colored glasses joined with lead, like in this case and is finished by welding the joints with tin. The “Tiffany” technique is glass welded with only tin: a tape of copper is placed around the glass and then it’s welded together with the glass, Getting a similar result as the one obtained with the lead approach; the lead is embedded, while the tin is glued. Those are the main techniques that I use, but I also use other techniques such as torching, fusing, and glass decoration. With all these techniques combined together, I create glass windows, objects, necklaces… and more

No. Not only did I stick to my style, but I have wanted to be even more myself I went counter trend to what has been happening in Venice: most shops have been diminishing the quality and the prices, I instead have tried to increase the quality working more and better; the prices increased, but so has the quality of my production. And it has been rewarded because I see that there is still people willing to pay for quality… fewer and fewer, but still some.

Some type of customers really appreciate handmade products, done the right way, like the things I’ve shown you. Americans for example really like products of the tradition, like small glass windows or even just the single glass roll. This roll here is like having a piece of Venice: they bring it back home and are happy to have it.

Well, there are these design pieces, like those ethnic ones, very easy to wear, that I personally designed and created, so it makes me especially happy to sell them, and they are also really appreciated by my customers.

Yes, I really hope that people will continue or start appreciating beauty again because, as Dostoevskij used to say, “Beauty will save the world”.