Thursday 28 March 2024

automatic translation

Thursday 28 March 2024

automatic translation

    A window on history: Altar or the Glass Phoenix

    Combine the words glass, art and craft and find a location. You've thought about Murano, haven't you? But today we want to take you to discover a second fascinating tradition, suspended between myth and historical investigation, between elegance and pragmatism, between a flourishing expansion and a painful decline. Welcome to Altare: the glass phoenix.

    A centuries-old rivalry

    Location located in the Savona hinterland, Altare is in fact the small home of blown glass. It was the seat of important and numerous glass factories that rivaled those of Murano for a long time.
    Suggestive and singular are the legends that tell the origin of the glass production in Altare. 

    The origins: between myth and history

    It is said that the Abbot of the Cenobio of the "Insula Liguria" (islet of Bergeggi) favored the transfer of some families of Flemish glassmakers to Altare, after admiring the surrounding mountains, rich in woods of strong wood, useful as fuel for the processing.
    Another version attributes the merit to some Norman nobles, who, returning from an XNUMXth century Crusade, favored the installation of furnaces, mediated by the experience of compatriot monks. 
    But the legend also extends to Syrian or Armenian artisans. And above all to the Benedictine monks, custodians of different processing techniques, including that of glass. The latter, most likely, taught the art to the locals, favoring the birth of the community. 

    University of Glass: the birth of the corporation

    In any case, various testimonies attest that already in 1100 around the glass industry was flourishing in Altare, which reached its maximum splendor during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
    From the union of several families, a powerful corporation was also born: theUniversity of Glass, favored by the Marquises of Monferrato, lords of the territories. The right to belong to this guild belonged only to the sons of these families. They were granted the title of gentleman and even exemptions from taxes and duties.

    Rules and referees

    The first Statutes to regulate the rights and duties of glassmakers date back to 1495. The observance of these Statutes was supervised by Consulate of the Art Vitrea, made up of six elected Consuls, that is, six of the most prestigious glass masters. 
    Unlike Venice, which for centuries managed to keep the secrets of glass art, the University of Altara did not prevent its diffusion, but regimented it.

    The extraordinary diffusion of Altarese glass

    The families of Altarese glassmakers emigrated to every part of the known world, opening furnaces and spreading a style whose imitations constituted a well-known, defined category altar façon, like the fashion of Venice.
    The most prestigious migrations took place during the reign of Louis XIV: the Minister of Finance Colbert favored the entry into France of the Altare glassmakers by granting them titles of nobility and tax exemptions, with the aim of snatching their secrets.

    Rituality: between religion and community spirit

    Glass processing took place from San Martino to San Giovanni Battista. The summer period was reserved for the repair of the furnaces and the supply of raw materials and fuel.
    The beginning of the work in the furnaces was solemnized by the ceremony of the "focus". It was a rite with both a religious and a social character. The priest blessed two candles by delivering them to two children disguised as angels. The latter, escorted by the Consuls and the glass masters, went to the furnaces and lit the fires. 
    The master blower was then called upon to perform, as a first work, a large capacity flask, which, filled with wine and combined with a rice cake, was brought to the workers to inaugurate the production.

    The fight at the University of Glass

    The activity of the University of Glass continued alternating prosperous periods with others troubled, if not critical, due to political struggles, wars, competition and even the plague.
    But the hardest blow to the university was a class conflict. The Consulate was in fact the sole authority of Altare and this power was not appreciated by an emerging class of citizens, made up of small entrepreneurs, traders and owners. The discontent resulted in decades of struggles that ended in 1823 with the Royal Manifesto which decreed the suppression of the University.
    Years of decadence and humiliation followed for the glass artists, forced to work in the few remaining kilns, in conditions of exploitation.

    The epic foundation of the Glass Art Society

    It was only on Christmas Eve 1856 that the Cooperative Anonymous Glass Artistic Society, an important Italian example of the union of capital and work and a brilliant symbol of the redemption of an entire community.
    Certainly more evocative than this description is the letter that the lawyer Pietro Lodi, the most enlightened of the Altarese masters, addressed to his children to narrate the foundation of the Society:

    "The same evening when the mystery of human redemption was to be celebrated at midnight in the nearby parish, at that very moment the act of the redemption of Art was signed in your uncle's halls Vitrea, and I can't describe the excitement and expansions of that moment. Everyone wanted me, they shook my hand and hugged me calling me their liberator, their benefactor, their father. You couldn't think of what more beautiful. Providence will do the rest ".

    The interference of politics

    Despite the volume of business that Altare was beginning to enjoy, the technological advances of the furnaces and the various Italian and international awards, the Government believed it would find in this Association an element in contrast with the National Institutions.
    Furthermore, the trade treaties of 1863 and 1867, established respectively with France and Austria, inflicted a further blow on the Society, favoring the economies and products of these nations over local ones.

    The epilogue after the war 

    The Società Artistico Vetraria, inspired by the principles of solidarity, was also destroyed by the Second World War, when the cooperative was transformed into mechanized industry, giving up craftsmanship.
    Furthermore, the prolonged lack of adequate funding decreed it in 1978 dissolution of the Company. This event marked not only the end of a company, but of an ancient working community that wrote the history of glass and expressed a working culture centered on the value, respect and dignity of each associate and collaborator, in deliberate opposition. to the needs of capital.

    The birth of the Institute

    But the history of Altarese glass does not end here. In fact, in 1982 theInstitute for the study of glass and glass art, with the aim of enhancing the memory of the rich artistic and cultural heritage of the Altare glass tradition and of laying the foundations for the relaunch of an artisan activity faithful to the past. These same assumptions prompted the Institute to acquire the glass collection that previously belonged to the Società Artistico Vetraria, now a constituent patrimony of the Altar Glass Museum.

    The Altarese heritage

    Of the ancient Altarese production there is no specimen that can be attributed with certainty and it is very difficult to distinguish the glasses made in the town from those manufactured in the altar façon. From a stylistic point of view, the influence of the Venetian style is evident in the Altarese glassmaking, but in a simpler and more severe version. 

    The glass production of Altare is characterized by being always linked to satisfaction of daily needs. The glass masters of the Savona hinterland were in fact capable of creating objects that were fascinating in form and at the same time functional; expression of an ante litteram design, which, added to such an exciting history, makes Altarese glass an extraordinary case in the panorama of Italian artisan and proto-industrial culture and tradition.

    Sources: bormioliartevetro.com, wikipedia

    You may also be interested in: The Altare glass museum
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