Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/672

Rh th xtury. 65-} (Domestic Arclzﬂecture of the Jlidclle Ayes, by Hudson Turner, p. 78). In Spain glass was made at Barcelona in considerable quantities in 1324; and Almeria, according to an Arab author of the 13th century, was famous for its manufacture of glass. In the 15th cexxtury the export of glass from Barcelona was considerable; J eronimo Paulo in 1491 says that gla.ss vessels of various sorts were sent thence to many places and even to Reine. In the 16th century the fashion of using glass vessels of ornamental character spread from Italy into France, England, and the Low Countries. Henry VIII. had a large quantity, chieﬂy or wholly, it would seem, of Venetian manufacture (see inventory in 1542, Arclza-‘ological Journal, vol. xviii.). This increasing use of glass led to the reﬂexion that large sums of money went annually to Venice for such wares, and to the question whether the manufacture might not be carried on at home. We therefore ﬁnd that about the middle of this century attempts were made to introduce the Venetian methods of manufacture into the several countries; Henry II. of France established an Italian named .Iutio at St Germain-en-Laye, and Henry IV. in 1598 per- mitted two “gentxlshommes verriers ” from Mantua to settle themselves at Rouen in order to make “ verres de cristal et autres ouvr-ages qui se font 5. Venise. ” A like attempt was made in England about 1550, for in that year eight glass- makers from M urano addressed from London a petition to the Council of Ten at Venice praying to be excused from the penalties decreed by that body in 1549 against Venetian subjects who taught the art ‘to foreigners (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, N o. 648). The council allowed the eight workmen to remain until the end of the term for which they had engaged themselves. Other attempts followed: Stow says (0/z.ron., p. 1040) that Venice glasses were ﬁrst made in London by one Jacob Vessaline about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in 1565 one Cornelius de Lannoy (or Launoy) was working in the pay of the Government (Cal. State Papers, Dom.). Others, as Carre or Quarre, and Becku alias Dolin, from the Low Countries, were engaged in similar undertakings during the latter part of this century, but it does not seem that any great success was attained, as the importation of glass from Venice continued until long after. These attempts to rival Murano seem to have been most successful in the Low Countries and in Spain. Ambrozio de Mongarda had a privilege in the former country to make “ voirres de cristal a la faschon de Venise,” which in 1599 was continued to Philippe de Gridolphi; his glass- house was at Antwerp. Glass-works also existed at Liége. _[uch glass in the 16th century was sent from Antwerp to England (Houdoy, Les Verreries (‘L la fagon dc Venise). This manufacture went on during the following century, and many examples remain, more or less resembling the products of Murano. In Germany Ferdinand I. established a glass-house at Weidlingen near Vienna, which was to work in the Italian manner ; but no great success it would seem attended these efforts, partly no doubt because about the same time the native glass’-makers struck out a new and original style of ornamentation for the great cylindrical beakers, sometimes 20 Inches in height, usually called wiederkom (come again), but which M. Peligot says ought to be called willkomm (welcome). This was a somewhat coarse but very effective system of painting in enamel such subjects as the emperor and electors of Germany, or the imperial eagle bearing on its wings the arms of the states which composed the empire, Szc. The earliest example which has been met with bears the date 1553, but “the system had great vogue, and con- tinued in use until about 1725. Spanish writers have not as yet acquainted us with the GLASS [IIISTORY. precise means by which the Venetian methods of working were brought to their country; but Gaspar Daneiros in his (llwonograplzia, published in 1562, says that the glass made at Barcelona was almost equal to that of Venice, and during this and the next century large quantities were exported. Venetian glass was imitated in several other places in Spain, and with considerable success, as several examples in the South Kensington Museum testify. The native forms and methods of working, however, went on contemporaneously‘ and it would appear do so down to the present day. The branch of glass—making in which the greatest results 17th were obtained in France during the 17th century was that of °011tU|'.V- the manufacture of mirrors. In 1665 the services of eighteen Venetians were obtained, and a factory established in the Faubourg St Antoine at Paris, and another factory was founded at Tour-la-Ville near Cherbourg. These were united and worked with great success; the plates which ornament the “ Galerie des Glaces ” at Versailles were made at Tour-la-Ville. In 1688 the process of casting plates of glass was ﬁrst adopted in modern times (for the window glass of Roman times was cast); and thus it became pos- sible to make mirrors of dimensions which could not be attained as long as the plates were produced by blowing. The manufacture was carried on at St Gobain, still the seat of an immense production of glass. English glass-making of the l7th century is distinguished by one of the most important innovations in the practice of the art which has at any time been introduced, that of using a large proportion of oxide of lead in combination with potash. Glass so made is more brilliant than other kinds, and is known in England as “ ﬂint glass,” in France as “ cristal.” The employment of lead as one of the ingre(li— ents of glass was not a discovery, for it had been practised to a small extent and for certain purposes, as in the imi- tation of gems by the Romans, and through the Middle Ages. Neither the date when ﬂint glass was ﬁrst made nor the inventor of the process is known. Sir William Slingsby before 1611 (Cal. Slate Papers, Dom.) had obtained a patent for making glass with sea coal ; and in 1615 the use of wood for that purpose was forbidden by royal proclamation. How far this proclamation may have been obeyed does not appear, but Sir R. Mansel, who held a patent of monopoly for glass-making from 1616 until about 1634 (and perhaps even later), states in 1623 that furnaces erected in London, the isle of Purbeck, Milford Haven, and on the Trent, had all failed, but that he had established them successfully at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Pro- bably coal was used at this last place, and it seems not unlikely that ﬂint glass may have been ﬁrst made there. Merret, however, writing about 1665 (in his edition of the Ars l'z'trarz'a of N eri), says that glass made with lead was not in use in the English glass—houses on account of its too great fragility; but in 1673 Evelyn notes in his diary a visit to the Italian glass-houses at Greenwich “ where glass was blown of ﬁner metal than that of Murano,” and in 1677 a visit to the duke of Buckingham’s glass-works (atLa1nbetl1), “where they made huge vases of metal as clear, ponderous, and thick as crystal, also looking-glasses far larger and better than any that come from Venice.” From this time 1n11cl1 glass was made in England, and I)r Pocoeke, who travelled in Germany in 17 36, gives the preference in point of quality to English glass over Bohemian. During this century much art and labour were employed in Germany in the ornamentation of vessels for drinking, such as goblets and wiederkoms. Sometimes they were painted in grisaille, the subjects being battles, processions, and the like, sometimes engraved or etched; common sub- jects are escutcheons with arms, views of cities, ciphers, c'zc. Many excellent artists worked in these various styles (Beckmann, Hist. of Invmtzbns, iii. 209 ; Doppelmayr,