The conference dedicated to glass beads has become a regular feature of the rich annual program conceived and organized by the Fondazione Musei Civici for The Venice Glass Week, the international festival founded in 2017 to celebrate, support, and promote the art of glass. Each year, the chosen theme explores a specific aspect of the history and production of glass beads over the centuries, on a global scale. This edition of the conference will feature various presentations demonstrating how the production of beads (lampwork, conterie, rosetta) was crucial to the 19th-century Murano glass industry and the Venetian economy, while also highlighting the historical and artistic value of this production.

Program:
SEPTEMBER 19th:
10:00 a.m.
-Chiara Squarcina – Scientific Director, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia
-Augusto Panini – Expert and historian of beads
-Welcome remarks and introduction to the conference themes
10:30 a.m.
-Puccio Migliaccio – Glass scholar
-Murano 1797 – 1866: a decline?
11:00 a.m.
-Augusto Panini – Expert and historian of beads
-Millefiori Beads: from Origins to the Magic of Venice
11:30 a.m.
-Marina Uboldi – President, Italian National Committee A.I.H.V. Augusto Panini – Expert and historian of beads
-Two 19th-Century Venetian Necklaces in the Archaeological Collection of Alfonso Garovaglio at the Civic Museum of Como
12:00 p.m.
-Questions from the audience and discussion

2:30 – 5:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m.
-Matteo Bächtold – PhD candidate, Collège de France, Paris
-An Ethiopian “Margarita” at the Heart of the Visions of Anna Katharina Emmerick, 19th-Century German Catholic Mystic
3:00 p.m.
-Wolbert G.C. Smidt – Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Research Centre for Ancient South Arabia and Northeast Africa, Jena, Germany / Department of Anthropology, Mekelle University, Ethiopia
-The Colours Red, Black and White – Understanding the Colours of Glass Beads in the Context of Ethiopian Highland Cultures
3:30 p.m.
-Mauro Stocco – Assistant Curator, Museo del Vetro, Murano
-A Necklace by Giovanni Battista Franchini and Other Gifts to the Murano Glass Museum
4:00 p.m.
-Questions from the audience and discussion
4:30 p.m.
-Presentation of the Proceedings of the Conference “Perle 4.0. Glass Beads: Technological Evolution and Trade across the Centuries”
Edited by Augusto Panini, Chiara Squarcina, Mauro Stocco

SEPTEMBER 20th

10:00 a.m.
Opening session
10:30 a.m.
-Giovanni Sarpellon – Independent researcher Rosaries and “Conta-Marie”
11:00 a.m.
-Marco Verità – Independent researcher
-Sandro Zecchin – Independent researcher
-Tradition and Innovation in Murano Glass Recipes for Beads from the 18th to the 20th Century
11:30 a.m.
-Bianca Cappello – Jewelry historian and critic
-Glass Beads in 19th-Century Jewelry and Fashion
12:00 p.m.
-Questions from the audience and discussion. Closing of the conference