Around the 15th
century, in Venice, mirrors were made using a rather complicated
labor-consuming technology: the amalgam of tin-foil and mercury was
superimposed on the reverse side of the glass.
Venetians
strictly kept the secrets of their mirrors. All glassblowers were moved to
Murano Island to make it easier to watch upon them. There is a version that the
Venetians outbid the secrets of the Flemings, who first came up with this
method.
In fact, Venice
received a monopoly on mirrors, at one time their export was even banned.
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| Murano Glass Mirror, 18th Century. |
This led to a
fantastic price increase. The mirrors were fabulously expensive, and Venice got
rich on that. Do I have to say that each mirror was decorated with a rich frame
of precious woods and precious metals and stones? The price of a single mirror
from Venice was simply off the scale. The meter mirror was sold for 70 thousand
French livres, while the paintings of Raphael were worth a maximum of 3 thousand.
Instead of one such mirror, one could buy a whole ship! Therefore, mirrors were
available only to kings and the elite.
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| Mirror from Venetian Murano Glass, 19th Century. |
It is worth
noting that the production of those mirrors was dangerous and detrimental to
health due to the use of mercury. But their quality was very mediocre: the
mirrors were muddy.
The famous mod
king Louis XIV was a big fan of mirrors. By instructions of Louis several
masters of mirror business were enticed away to France. The secret of making
mirrors had been revealed! Themselves these masters, however, in the best
traditions of those times, were poisoned by Venetians for divulging secrets.
