Foreclosures Stones Break Glasses In Distant Venice

January 6th, 2009 | Tags: Foreclosure Crisis

Stones thrown from the crumbling foreclosure crisis are breaking glasses in distant Venice. The recession that has started rolling from America has left no country untouched.
Venice has been renowned for centuries for their workshops that produced intricate glass products. Their customers were the most upbeat shops in the world. But today the picture has changed – the glass blowers of Murano are shivering from the stones cracking their glass business coming from across the Atlantic thanks to the foreclosure meltdown in America.

David Camuccio is the secretary of the union representing the craftsmen – Filcem-CGI. He bemoaned, “The glass-making district is on the point of collapse. The numbers (of sales) have been plummeting exponentially since the second half of 2007.” According to the union about 300 to 800 artisans who are glassmakers have been laid off. After the Christmas boom it is apprehended that the number will increase to 600.

Murano is a group of islands north of central Venice. Here there are 120 workshops that produce exquisite coloured glass items – these being one of Venice’s renowned products. A cursory glance will not betray the pain behind dazzling showrooms. In the main square is a shining Christmas tree. But the real mood of Murano is grim with pre-Christmas sales having gone down by 25%. The Americans constitute 60% of the foreign shoppers buying Murano glass. But today Americans have other thoughts like foreclosure and recession uppermost on their minds.

In the past Murano glass manufacturing has faced troubles but today this fragile piece of living history is totally dependent on tourism. Yet the very identity of Venice is linked with the names of gondoliers and glass blowers. The art of glass blowing flourished in the 8th century in the Venetian lagoon. In the 13th century the Doge ordered the glass units with their furnaces to be forcibly removed from the heart of Venice to this small archipelago three km north of central Venice. Most probably this move was initiated to prevent non-Venetians from learning the secrets of this trade. The step did not harm the glass making. During the golden age of Venice the connections of traders with the Middle East brought in new techniques that Europe had hitherto not known.

With the fall of the Venetian Empire the fortunes of the glassmakers fell to be revived again when the city came to be included in Italy. Unfortunately bad days are again knocking. Philosophically Seguso remarked, “The market gives and the market takes away.”