We like to think of this material as the cherished work of the alchemist.
Perhaps this is its origin, perhaps not, or perhaps it is what they would have us believe.
The fact remains that the transparency of this material, it colours, is obdurate resistance to repetition, share much with that unsolved enigma that is the desperate quest for the purity of gold. The work and the symbolism of the alchemist’s art can only be true if the same desire and philosophy fuelled that quest. It is nonetheless true that glass comes into being by means of an alchemical process and perhaps after all it is the purity and transparency of that process that produces the result.
In truth, no-one knows precisely when and where glass took on its form. A union of minerals that is different in every part of the Earth.

"A union of minerals that is transformed in my hands, that comes to embody what dwells in my imagination, and that is the most extraordinary feeling of all". This feeling that Roberto describes so graphically is what has made him aware that he is an "initiate", a fortunate man who possesses the key to the secrets of working with Murano glass.