Castello del Buonconsiglio monumenti e collezioni provinciali

The adventure of glass

From the Renaissance to the twentieth century between Venice and distant worlds

Location: Trento, Castello del Buonconsiglio

26 June - 07 November 2010

Opening hours: 10.00 - 18.00

Renaissance masterpieces from Venetian museums, a cargo of sixteenth century pearls and glass recovered from the Croatian seabed, fascinating glass pearl necklaces destined for the African market, and also Napoleon’s glass flute which was recovered by the English after the Battle of Waterloo will be among the magnificent collection of objects on display.

After the success of our collaboration with the Egyptian Museum of Turin, Castello del Buonconsiglio has signed another important partnership with Venice and the Murano Glass Museum, which will loan around 200 glass objects, most of which have never before been exhibited. As with the extraordinary exhibition Unseen Egypt, the collection of the mysterious Habsburg official Taddeo de Tonelli, donated to the museum in the mid-nineteenth century, will feature strongly in Castello del Buonconsiglio’s exhibition of glass in the summer of 2010. Tonelli’s passion for collecting secured two magnificent Renaissance pieces, unique in their beauty, rarity and value: a plate and a goblet with enamelled decorations, which together with numerous precious exhibits from the Venice Civic Museums Foundation will provide further insight into the history of Venetian glass production and its spread to distant lands. Precious public and private collections will illustrate the many uses of glass as an extraordinarily flexible and versatile material. This fascinating topic will also provide an opportunity to examine key aspects of techniques and styles from the Renaissance period. At this time Murano’s glass workshops had an enormous influence over the history of glass in Europe, thanks in part to the new discoveries of crystalline glass, milk glass and chalcedony, as well as innovative techniques such as filigrana reticello and filigrana retortoli. Among the astonishing variety of uses to which glass has been put, the exhibition will focus in particular on jewellery production, drinking glasses, goblets, vases and plates for sumptuous table settings and decorative applications. The exhibition, which will unfold in the prestigious setting of Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento and the magnificent rooms of Castel Thun in the Non Valley, will be divided into different sections with evocative scenic reconstructions. These will include the production of glass in a furnace, the identification and preparation of raw materials, glass for dining, for illumination and for grocers’ shops. The exhibition will include exciting reconstructions: as well as seeing a Renaissance Venetian furnace, visitors will be able to enter the belly of a sixteenth-century ship that sank in Gnalic and see the exhibits surface from the water. There will also be a number of films on glass production and the masterpieces produced every day in Murano. A rich section will be dedicated to multicoloured necklaces of glass pearls from public and private collections.

Displays will also include pink pearls from the sixteenth century, known as the ‘queen of pearls’, which were bartered for slaves. It is said that in 1626 the Dutchman Peter Minnit bought the island of Manhattan from the natives for a total of twenty-four dollars in glass pearls. The 100 pieces from private collections represent the best of Murano glass production from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with key works from the most important masters and designers, such as Pietro Bigaglia, Jacopo Franchini, Giuseppe and Ercole Barovier, Vittorio Zecchin, Napoleone Martinuzzi, Carlo Scarpa and Fulvio Bianconi.

Every day throughout the month of August visitors will be able to enjoy the theatrical production entitled “Glass”, staged by L’uovo Teatro Stabile di Innovazione of Aquila. The exhibition is curated by Aldo Bova.