Little heed is paid to this more elaborately decorated glass by the great contemporary painters. In fact, I can find no example of it in their works. When glass is introduced, it is invariably of the simplest description. In the big altar-pieces of Giovanni Bellini, of Cima, or of Carpaccio, the glass lamps that hang from the roof are in the form of little conical cups of plain outline. Amid all the elaborate _staffage_ of Crivelli’s pictures, the lily on the table or ledge beside the Virgin stands in a little cylindrical beaker of glass, for all the world like a modern tumbler.[148] So in the next century we may search in vain in the pictures of Titian or of Veronese for elaborate examples of Venetian glass. In the banquet scenes of the latter painter, the wine indeed is served from graceful decanters with tall necks and globular bodies, and is drunk from tazza-shaped goblets of glass,[149] but on the _credenza_ or buffet at the side, the gold and silver plate is never relieved by examples of our material. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXII_ VENETIAN GLASS OPAQUE WHITE WITH GILT SCROLLS. EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY] A curious account of a banquet given at Mantua, on the occasion of the marriage of the Marquis, is quoted by Mr. Nesbitt from a contemporary writer. There was, we are told, on this occasion such a display of ‘_diversi bicchieri, carrafe, e giarre ed altri bellissimi vasi di cristallo di Venezia, che credo vi fussero concorse tutte le botteghe di Morano!_’ And there was need of this store, he adds, seeing that after they had drunk, the guests proceeded to break the glasses they held in their hands ‘_per segno di grande allegrezza_.’[150] We are reminded of the feast described by Joinville, though in that case the glasses were swept off the table by the well-aimed Bible of one of the guests (see p. 136). I shall now have to pass in rapid review the principal varieties and applications of the glass made at Murano in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Frosted or Crackle Glass is perhaps the simplest modification of the pure _cristallo_. To produce this, the _paraison_ is plunged rapidly into cold water, and after reheating to the necessary degree, but not beyond, it is worked into the desired form. A similar effect is at times produced by rolling the molten _paraison_ upon fragments of crushed glass. I have spoken in the introductory chapter of certain rare cases where a minute fissuring has been set up in the substance of the glass. This true crackle is probably in all cases the result of a subsequent structural change.