VARIETIES OF VENETIAN GLASS—EARLY LITERATURE The history of modern glass begins, as I have said, with the famous Venetian _cristallo_ of the sixteenth century. Many other varieties were made at this time, but it was the absolutely colourless and transparent glass, capable of being blown to extreme thinness and then worked into every variety of form, that above all established the European reputation of the Murano glass-workers. Before long, in nearly every country of Western Europe, the old methods of working were falling into disuse; and by the aid of skilled workmen who were tempted away from Murano, or, failing that, were hired from the rival glass furnaces of L’Altare, the attempt was made to imitate this clear white glass of Venice. We have, then, in this _cristallo_ the typical glass of Venice, and here more than in any other group, whether of earlier or of later date, we find a family of glass of which the artistic merit depends directly upon the skill of the glass-blower, rather than on that of the enameller or engraver. In the simpler and earlier specimens, an undeniable charm is derived from the extreme tenuity of the material—there is an evanescent and almost ghostly air about the ‘diaphanous, pellucid, dainty body’[147] of not a few of these glasses. Although entirely free from any positive colour, there is often a certain tendency to greyness in the metal, and this is increased to a misty cloudiness when the surface has been attacked by atmospheric influence, as is not unfrequently the case with glasses that have been long exposed to our damp English climate. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXI_ VENETIAN GLASS FLOWER-VASE OF COLOURLESS GLASS WITH BLUE THREADING AND STUDS]