Prof. Francesco Carelli

La murrina is a symbol of excellence in furniture and design with unique glass products “Made in Murano”. Thanks to its strong roots and high artisan skills, the company operates in the high-end market combining tradition, design and technology. The story of the company dates back to the 1960s in Murano where there was a small furnace managed by a group of glass-worker masters. The company started realizing prestigious objects in blown glass created by the owners of the furnace. In 1974, the property of the furnace came under the control of a family from Milan, who already produced items for lighting in glass and metal. Hence, the company started to be managed as a corporation. “la murrina” trademark was registered all around the world and its collections started to spread worldwide. In 2000, la murrina had its first collaborations with famous designers and architects who extended the production with their contemporary design collection realized in accordance with old glass blowing techniques.
Today, la murrina S.R.L. continues to propose new projects and products which shows its leading position in the market.
Thanks to its high-value know-how and savoir-faire in the Italian design, la murrina S.R.L. addresses to the interior design market, continuing its collaborations with important projects that boost the creation of new collections.
The company’s development strategy mainly consists in perpetuating the brand internationalization. La murrina S.R.L. provides custom-made projects in the luxury market from residential buildings to hotels.
The term “Murrino” was conied in modern times in 1878 by abbot Vincenzo Zanetti who contributed so much to the rebirth of Murano’s glassmaking after a long period of crisis. Zanetti used this term to define vases and bowls in mosaic glass that Romans did using sections of reed that presented their entire length abstract or even figurative designs such as faces, flowers, animals. Since then the term murrino has remained and serves to identify both the individual sections of the cane and the object obtained from their composition. To form a murrina in overlapping concentric layers it is necessary that in the furnace there are crucibles with glass in the state of different colored jars. A worker then takes a small amount of glass from the first crucible on the tip of an iron rod, immediately covering it with more glass taken from a second crucible. He can do so by overlapping several layers of different colors.
With carefully chosen murrina sticks of various diameters and colors, decorative pendants are made, which, equipped with a chain, are worn on the ladies’ blouse or bare skin. The birth of these objects took place in 1968 and is the result of a happy intuition, a true invention, of the owners of the Ercole Moretti & Brothers. The idea was to create a circle with a copper ribbon and form inside it a composition with segments of murrina forming a real inlay. Brought to fusion, the object, after the elimination of the copper, is subsequently finished by grinding and the equipped with a golden metal circle, if not gold.
(Photo: three little figures made in murrina style)