Founded in 2012 within the Institute of Art History of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the Glass Study Centre pursues the aim of studying and promoting Venetian art glass in all its modern and contemporary forms. The Centre thus sets out to once more give glass a prominent position on the Italian and international art scene, by highlighting its potential through exhibitions, conferences, publications and offering scholarships addressed to experts and researchers interested in the history, technology and future developments of this specific medium.
The main objective of the Glass Study Centre is to catalogue, conserve and publish online all the acquired collections in order to create and feed a comprehensive Archive on Venetian Glass and consolidate a specialised library.
The documentation kept at the Glass Study Centre mainly concerns the production of the most well-known Venetian furnaces, such as Aureliano Toso, Barovier Seguso e Ferro, M.V.M. Cappellin & C., Pauly &C.–C.V.M., Seguso Vetri d’Arte, Società Veneziana Conterie and Vetrerie Antonio Salviati. The list of works refers to some of the most celebrated glass designers, such as Emmanuel Babled, Fulvio Bianconi, Luigi Scarpa Croce, Dino Martens, Flavio Poli, Ginny Ruffner, Carlo Scarpa, Peter Shire and Vinicio Vianello.
In 2020, the archives of contemporary artists Cristiano Bianchin, Giorgio Vigna, Silvano Rubino and the great glassmaster Pino Signoretto were also acquired.
All the Centre’s collections (books, graphic arts and photographs) are available to the public and they have already partly been included in various publications.
Moreover, the multimedia collections concerning conferences, interviews with master glassmakers, art historians, artists and, last but not least, all the digital archives of the historic Venini furnace will soon be online.
