There is little change or development to be observed in the glass of this character made at Murano during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nor is it always safe to regard contorted shapes and elaborate decorations as necessarily a sign of a late origin. This caution is confirmed by an often quoted passage from Sabellico, the learned librarian of St. Mark’s and historian of Venice; it is from a Latin work, _De Situ Venetæ Urbis_, written about 1495. We can form from it some idea of the wonderful variety of the outturn from the Murano glass-works at that time, and of the elaborate shapes that were already given to the vessels. When we pass, says Sabellico, from Venice to the suburb of Murano, we are struck by the grandeur and size of the buildings; it appears from afar as a city, extending for a mile in length. The island owes its chief renown to its glass-works. It was a famous discovery to make glass that should vie with crystal in clearness. Since then the nimble wit of the workmen and the never-resting care to find something new have led them to apply to the material a thousand various colours and shapes without number. Hence the _calices_, the flasks, the _canthari_, the ewers, the _candelabra_, the animals of every race, the horns, the beads (_segmenta_), the bracelets, etc. etc. So far Sabellico—the good man is, I am afraid, more concerned with his latinity than with the matter in hand: but this is a weakness that he shares with more than one writer of this time. He goes on to speak of the ‘Murrhine vases’ made at Murano, of which the only fault is their cheapness; all these marvels had the Venetian galleys brought before the eyes of the nations, so that, wondrous to say, by familiarity they had become as things base and common. In the means adopted by the Venetians to adorn their _cristallo_ we are at times taken back to Roman methods. The handles, often of blue glass, and the stringings and frillings that surround the body are applied hastily but skilfully by the light hand of the workman. This kind of ornament reached its completest development in the tall beakers and vases with handles that took the form of wing-like excrescences. These ‘winged beakers’ were afterwards copied and the forms exaggerated in Germany and in the Netherlands, where they were held to be especially characteristic of the now fashionable glass of Venice. It is certainly remarkable how little this Muranese glass as a whole reflects the glorious Venetian art of the _cinquecento_. Apart from some of the earlier enamelled and gilt examples and from the simpler forms of the pure thin _cristallo_, we can find among it little that is quite satisfactory from an artistic point of view. Much even of the sixteenth-century glass is merely fantastic, and appeals only to childish tastes. The bulk of it was probably made for foreign markets, for the dull northern barbarian, whose attention had to be caught by something new and extravagant.