L’Arte Vetraria
The Art of Glass
By Antonio Neri

This is a three volume English translation of the acclaimed Renaissance glassmaking treatise. In the spring of 1612, a 36-year-old Italian priest published a book that is now perhaps the most famous in the history of glassmaking. The priest was Antonio Neri, and the book is L’Arte Vetraria, or The Art of Glass. The son of a physician, and ordained in the Catholic Church, Neri was an accomplished herbalist, alchemist, and a skilled glassmaker. His little book would find its way into numerous languages, and would become the bible of glassmaking throughout Europe for more than two centuries. Neri’s recipes expose the coveted secrets of Venetian style glass. They show clearly how raw materials were refined, processed, and melted in the furnace to form a rainbow variety of colors. Now largely relegated to the shelves of rare book collectors, and to the footnotes of scholarly papers, Priest Neri’s passion, and brilliance are in danger of being forgotten. This is the first fresh English language translation of the book since the mid 1600s. Each passage is thoroughly researched, each term is carefully explained, and each page of the original Italian is inset alongside Engle’s translation, reproduced exactly as it appeared in the first edition.

TITLE: L’Arte Vetraria, The Art of Glass, Vol. I Translated & Annotated by Paul Engle
PAGES: xviii +114, includes glossary, appendices and index
PUBLISHER: Heiden & Engle
ISBN: 0-9743529-1-8

VOLUME I: In the first of three volumes, Paul Engle presents a carefully researched translation of the first 36 chapters of L’Arte Vetraria. Through it, we can get a sense of apprenticeship with a master craftsman schooled in the coveted Venetian glassmaking techniques of the late sixteenth century. Neri’s vitality and enthusiasm for his work reaches out and connects us to the world of a Renaissance Italian artisan; his passion and excitement for the beauty of glass shines through, and reminds us of the common bonds all artists have shared throughout human history. The cover shows the main entrance to the Medici Casino di San Marco; the building where Neri started his glassmaking career in early seventeenth century Florence.

TITLE: L’Arte Vetraria, The Art of Glass, Vol. II Translated & Annotated by Paul Engle
PAGES: xviii+97, includes glossary, 9 illustrations, appendices and index
PUBLISHER: Heiden & Engle
ISBN: 0-9743529-2-6

VOLUME II: This second volume contains some of Antonio Neri’s best work. It covers chapter 37 through 74 of L’Arte Vetraria, including his spectacular chalcedony glass recipes. Here he details each step of these complex concoctions, and includes instructions for all of the basic preparatory chemicals. Also explained are numerous lead crystal glasses, complete with directions to gaffers for working these tricky materials. This volume contains an expanded glossary, useful weight and measure information, and thumbnail biographical sketches of the major characters surrounding Neri’s life and the book. Also published for the first time is a synopsis of material from two little known Neri manuscripts that have emerged at the University of Glasgow Library. These contain recipes by Neri on the subjects of chemistry and herbal medicine. One is copiously illustrated, includes the author’s signature, an apparent self-portrait, and biographical information previously unknown, shedding new light on Antonio Neri’s life and work. The cover shows an early 17th century map of Pisa, inset with a period looking-glass showing Niccolò Sisti’s glass facility where Neri worked in 1602–1603.

TITLE: L’Arte Vetraria, The Art of Glass, Vol. III Translated & Annotated by Paul Engle
PAGES: xviii+130, includes glossary, appendices and index
AUTHOR: Paul Engle
ISBN: 0-9743529-3-4

VOLUME III: This third and final volume covers chapter 75 through 133 of L’Arte Vetraria. It details the creation of imitation gems, that “...by far surpass the beauty and color of all other pastes made until today.” Also described are enamels, both clear and opaque, with advice for varying the intensity of the colors. The final chapters detail a variety of recipes, some for glass, some for enamels, and others that range from paints, to restoring faded turquoise, to casting white bronze mirrors. In this volume, the glossary has been expanded again to include more specialized terms used by Neri, and weighs in at over 550 entries.

In July of 1601, Emanuel Ximenes traveled from Antwerp to Florence to visit his sister and her husband. There he met their tenant, Priest Antonio Neri, and the two became fast friends. In 1603 Neri journeyed to Flanders to spend what turned out to be a seven year long visit with Ximenes. In Antwerp he worked in the city’s Venetian style glass factory, run by Filippo Gridolphi, where his projects included creating paste gems for Portuguese jewelers, and formulating his finest chalcedony glass, from which he had two vases made and presented to the Prince of Orange. Within a year of his return to Italy, L’Arte Vetraria was published.

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