Hello,
I am trying to draw people's attention on Altare, the other great glassmaking center in Italy, active from the 10th Century to about 1975. Altare is a small town located on the hills near Savona, in the Ligurian Apennines. It was chosen by early glassmakers as an ideal outpost for glass production because of its rich forests and favorable geographical placing. Production started in a series of family-owned crucibles, managed officially by a corporation or guild which controlled the secrets of the art and all its intricacies. However, unlike the Venetians, the Altarese were partially free of emigrating abroad. This provided a relief valve for large families and export crises, which were recurrent throughout history as much as they are now. However, the hemorrhagic loss of know how was to be detrimental to the small glassmaking center, as more and more Altarese implanted successful factories in France, Germany, England, Scotland, the Flanders and the Low Countries. For instance, it was apparently an Altarese who was called by Colbert, the famous French minister, to set up a glass industry in a country that did not have any up to that time. His name was Perotto, naturalized Perrot. The list is long, and this is not the place to give it; however, I would not mind to find out if any of the members know about this odyssey of glass, so to speak, that spread the Altarese art to the most distant countries.