Glass Study Center - Archivio digitale della Fondazione Giorgio Cini Onlus

The Archive of the Glass Study Center, which was established in 2012 within the Institute of Art History of the Giorgio Cini Foundation- preserves a documental heritage of artistic and historical documents originating from Venetian and Murano's glassworks. The collection primarily includes drawings and sketches, correspondence and documentation, production catalogs, press releases and photographs of the period. These unique and extremely rare materials are sources of historical, artistic, and scientific reference not only for researchers and glass enthusiasts, but also for the enhancing and revival of glass making art, particularly that of the 20th century. The Centre also organizes educational and exhibiting programs in collaboration with universities and other cultural partners around the world.

To date, the digital catalogue includes all the graphic and photographic materials belonging to the large Seguso Vetri d'Arte glassworks' archive (35.736 records), an archival nucleus which testifies the historical furnace's wide production from 1932 to 1973. The documental patrimony also includes artist Vinicio Vianello (2.420 records), a central figure of Spatialism and a great experimenter in glass making art. His Atomici vases are famous, as his lighting and design models. The digital documentation is now put at disposal on line for study and research purposes. Among the available collections, also those of renowned contemporary artists active in Murano, such as: Cristiano Bianchin (approximately 1.700 graphic and photographic records), Silvano Rubino (over 500 drawings and one artist's sketchbook), Giorgio Vigna (approximately 1.600 records), Ginny Ruffner (207 records), Peter Shire (115 records), as well as several major projects by Emmanuel Babled (16 records). The Dino Martens archive (326 records) has been digitized and published as well.

The contents of the digital collections are certainly going to be implemeted, deriving from in progress initiatives, such as new legacies of sources, publications and conferences. The outcomes of several projects may also be included in the Quaderni del vetro (https://www.cini.it/cini_publications/collana-quaderni-del-vetro), series of books created as an editorial project aiming to enhance the cataloguing activities which have been finalized and promoted to date.

access to the archives guide

Emmanuel Babled

The Emmanuel Babled collection contains sixteen designs for the Primaire collection presented at the Clara Scremini Gallery in Paris from 9 September 1999 to 9 October 1999. The models chosen for the collection were hand blown by the Venini glassworks in spring 1999.

Dino Martens

The Dino Martens collection contains 345 designs made for the Aureliano Toso glassworks in Murano, ordered chronologically and following the model number. Various groups of designs for a single project are also collected in specific series. The many archived designs include those for glass pieces that were shown in important exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale, the Fondazione Bevilacqua la...

Ginny Ruffner

The Ginny Ruffner collection is made up of several types of material whose iconographic core is 52 designs made during the artist's residence in Murano in 1989 and produced by the Vistosi glassworks the same year. The documentation includes postcards, invitations, gallery brochures, catalogues and press release articles relating to various exhibitions of the artist's work from 1987 to 2014.

Peter Shire

The archive consists mainly of iconographic material accompanied by photographs, some predominantly personal letters and faxes, and manuscripts with work notes from the Murano glassworks dating from between 1997 and 1999. Iconographic archive Peter Shire's designs for glass sculptures made between 1988 and 1989 by the Vistosi glassworks and some subsequent ones dating from between 1997 and ...

Vinicio Vianello

Vinicio Vianello (Venice, 1923 - Zelarino-VE 1999), a multi-faceted artist-designer who belonged to the Spatialist movement, while remaining in a transverse position to the "official" artistic current, was one of the most complex and significant figures of the postwar period. Constantly aimed at free experimentation, one of the main purposes of his singular inquiry was the study and treatmen...

Seguso Vetri d'Arte

The Seguso Vetri d'Arte archive is distinguished by the richness and breadth of its materials: in fact, the iconographic corpus, divided into Art Glass, Lighting, and Special Projects, gathers more than 22,000 documents, including preparatory sketches, plates, plans, and furnace drawings. The drawings are executed with multiple techniques, from watercolor to pastel to charcoal.

Amon...

Cristiano Bianchin

The large and various archive documenting Cristiano Bianchin's career in the context of glass art, includes 1.100 cataloguing records wich testify the Venetian artist's production and exhibitions' activity between 1988 and 2008. The graphic and photographic collections also represent an invaluable source for understanding the evolution of glass design and the history of glass, both in Italy ...

Silvano Rubino

Silvano Rubino's archive of drawings spans the period from 2001 to 2023. It includes excecutive projects, drawings and an artist's sketchbook, for a total of approximately 230 records that chronicle the Venetian artist's career in the field of glass art. The rich body of documentation, divided into the series Vasi Oggetto, Installaz...

Giorgio Vigna

The on line tour offers access to archival sources relating to the artist's various collaborations from 1983 to 2018. These include creations produced in collaboration with the Venini glassworks, as well as previously unpublished works for Salviati and a series of projects for Ittala, to name just a few. The information contained in...

Carlo Moretti e Giovanni Moretti

Carlo Moretti (1934-2008) and Giovanni Moretti (1940-2014) came from a family that played a leading role in the revival of glassmaking since the mid-19th century. Great-grandsons of the celebrated Vincenzo Moretti and sons of one of the founders of Moretti Ulderico & C.', they inherited the company's philosophy an...

Luigi Scarpa Croce

Luigi Scarpa Croce (Venice, 1901 - 1967) was an Italian painter and sculptor. He graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 1923 following the courses of Ettore Tito. After graduation, he took part in several exhibitions, including those at Ca' Pesaro and the Venice International Art Biennale, starting in the mid-1920s. In 1930, he was appointed art...

Access to the Archives
Consultation is by appointment, on request sent to centrostudivetro@cini.it, from Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 1 pm and from 2pm to 5.30pm.
Consultation of the documents is subject to the regulations in force, with particular reference to the decree law 196 of 30 June 2003 ("Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali"), decree law 42 of 22 January 2004 ("Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio") and subsequent amendments.