Rare are the materials that have improved the quality of life so much with mass use as is the case with glass. Today, it is used in all spheres of human life - from numerous tools in the household, primarily in the kitchen, through the electronic device industry, to architectural elements. Modern housing would be practically unthinkable without glass.
In nature, it can be found in the form of volcanic glass, obsidian, which is formed by the pouring of hot magma in which quartz (silicate) sand, the basic raw material for glass, melts at huge temperatures, and then cools and hardens.
Glass is a material that has been in use since the very beginnings of human civilization. The first vessels were made in Egypt and Mesopotamia around 1500. BC Glass objects, remains of workshops with molds and parts of a glass melting furnace were found there.
The technology of making glass is slowly spreading around the ancient world, so the Phoenicians, Assyrians and Palestinians had developed production. The first manual for making glass was written around 650. BC and was kept in the Assyrian library of Ashurbanipal. The turning point in the development of glass is the discovery of Syrian and Palestinian workers who discovered the art of blowing glass at the beginning of the 1st century. This invention led to a dramatic change in the production of glass because its production was significantly cheaper and more affordable. With the spread of Christianity, artificially colored glass spread throughout Europe and became the dominant art form in the new millennium.
There are numerous examples of churches and cathedrals with miraculously beautiful stained glass windows composed of numerous pieces of stained glass, and one of the oldest among them is in the monastery of St. Paul, founded in 686, in Jarrow, England. At the beginning of the new millennium, around the year 1000, Venice took the lead in glass production, and the small island of Murano became the center of its production and improvement. For centuries, the Venetians multiplied the wealth of their Republic precisely in the production and sale of glass.
Murano glass masters had a privileged position in society, almost like nobles, they could marry their daughters to the best Venetian houses, they were exempt from persecution and were well paid, but at the cost of their lives they were not allowed to leave the city. rest. The law prescribed the death penalty for any of them who would leave Venice or reveal a secret to anyone. A real revolution in glassmaking followed when Sir Alastair Pilkington invented the procedure for obtaining float glass (float - float, float). Its automated production started 6 years later and today it is the standard method for glass production.
Liquid glass slides (floats, floats) on the surface of molten metal in a chamber with a controlled atmosphere. The mass is gradually cooled and glass of ideally flat and parallel surfaces, of uniform thickness, is formed.
There are glass blowers who are real artists. The most famous are the masters, of course from Murano. It is very fascinating how various glass objects are obtained from one hot, glowing mixture.
Murano glass has such a range of colors that ordinary glass does not have, thanks to a special process of handmade glass. What gives a special stamp to each object made of Murano glass is the skill of the masters, who make each object by hand and that gives a special value to these objects, which as such enrich the space in which they are placed.
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