Technical Information
Studies on medieval glass, in our country, have enjoyed alternating fortunes over time; to a 'basso continuo' (the excavation reports, where glass contexts are published together with all the other objects and the presentations of specific associations or typologies, on the occasion of congresses, even dedicated ones, such as those of the AIHV), as a counterpoint a few 'solos', that is to say a few synthesis studies: attempts to analyze the problems related to glass production and the circulation of glass artifacts in a historical social, but also geographical framework, which exceeded the praiseworthy reasoned description of a single case, of a specific finding. The book by Margherita Ferri unquestionably falls into this second category. First of all because, while hinging (as main contexts of reference) on Venice, it does not speak only of it (and appropriately the reference to the Serenissima has given way, even in the title, to a more pertinent geographical juxtaposition, that is, the upper Adriatic) . Then, because, on closer inspection, this book does not even speak only of the upper Adriatic, since this space is intended as a synecdoche, representing very well, in the known and studied cases, that detail capable of describing and understanding the general. Thus Venice (a cumbersome relative in any history of glass in Italy), returns to the right riverbed that belongs to it: only by correctly repositioning the hands of the clock (the concentration of production in Murano in the XNUMXth century, the birth of a production system with characters pre-industrial, the fame that follows), the history of glass in the upper Adriatic is able to move in a more articulated and fluid space, but historically more correct and scientifically more promising (Sauro Gelichi)
In collaboration with SAMI, Società degli Archeologi Medievisti Italiani
