Fifteen Days to Make a Single Bead. Seven Days of Rotation. Since 1911.
Patrice Niset/APAF,2012
There is a fact about Murano glass beads that most people don't know:
After the beads are shaped on a lampwork flame — after the multicolored murrine are gathered around a core of molten glass, after the canes are stretched, sliced, and assembled — the beads are placed in rotating barrels. They spin continuously. For seven days.
This tumbling process is a family secret of Ercole Moretti, an atelier on the island of Murano that has been making glass beads since 1911. It is what gives their millefiori beads — "a thousand flowers" — their distinctive glossy finish and smooth, pleasant touch. The entire process, from molten glass to finished bead, takes fifteen days.
UNESCO inscribed the art of glass beads as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2020, recognizing a craft that spans Italy and France. In the Italian tradition, beads are made in two ways: "a lume" (with a blowtorch) and "da canna" (by sectioning and polishing a hollow cane). The more complex technique — assembling murrines from multicolored glass canes — produces the millefiori patterns that have defined Venetian beadwork since the ancient Roman era.
The craft is transmitted informally in workshops. Apprentices learn by observing, experimenting, and practicing under the supervision of expert craftspeople. There are no shortcuts. No mass-production lines. Knowledge passes from hands to hands.
Fendi- Hand in Hand
Fendi understood this. For their "Hand in Hand" project — a celebration of Italian regional craftsmanship — Silvia Venturini Fendi selected Ercole Moretti to represent Veneto. The atelier handcrafted hundreds of unique beads for a single Baguette bag, layering and stretching molten glass, cutting it into two shapes, and weaving the finished beads into dark grey yarn.
Glassblowing has been practiced on the island of Murano since the 12th century. Ercole Moretti has been part of that story since 1911. And as Silvia Venturini Fendi has said of the Hand in Hand project: "Each bag is special because the imperfection of the hand-made is what makes it so inherently beautiful."
At A Bit of Art, we believe in this principle. That the things we carry, wear, and use every day can hold centuries of knowledge inside them. A bead is not just a bead. It is fifteen days of labor, seven days of rotation, and over a century of a single family's devotion to a craft that UNESCO has recognized as irreplaceable.
Heritage is not fragile. It is molten glass, shaped by fire, and it endures.
