The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [15]
Dry instantly in the heat of the flames, the droplet Corradino had made was placed delicately in the compartment marked `uno' in the rosewood box. Even nestling in the wool flock its diamond-like purity was not dulled. Corradino sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Angelo Barovier, the Maestro who had, two centuries ago, invented this `cristallo' glass of hard silica with which Corradino now worked. Before then, all glass was coloured, even white glass had an impurity or dullness, the hue of sand or milk or smoke. Cristallo meant that, for the first time, full transparency and crystal clarity could be achieved, and Corradino blessed the day.
Corradino turned back to the making of his droplets. He still had ninety-nine to make before he would allow himself to return to his quarters for his wine and polenta supper. He could not entrust this work to one of the servente apprentices, because each one of the hundred droplets was different. In a move that had astounded his fellows, Corradino insisted that each droplet, because of its position on the chandelier, its distance from each candle, had to be a slightly different shape in order to transmit the same luminescence from every angle when suspended from the ceiling of a church or palazzo. The other glassmakers in the fornace and the boys used to gaze for hours on end at the contents of Corradino's droplet boxes, shaking their heads. They all looked exactly the same. Corradino saw them looking and smiled. He knew he had no need to hide his work - they could look all day long and would not know how he did it. Even he did not really understand what his fingers did as he thought of where this particular droplet would hang on the finished piece.
Corradino always went to look at the place where his chandeliers would hang. He asked his customers endless questions about how the room would be lit, he looked at the windows and shutters, he even considered the movement of the sunlight and the impact of the reflections from the water of the canal. And each time he noted down his calculations in a little vellum notebook, recording everything. This precious volume was now, at the height of Corradino's mastery, crammed with his ugly handwriting and his beautiful drawings. Numbers, forming intricate measurements and equations, also jostled for room on the page as Corradino believed in the power of the ancient science of mathematics. Thus, each piece that he made and each advancement in technique was documented so that he could develop his art by making reference to his previous pieces. Now, having finished the last unique glass drop, he took out his book. He found the calculations he had taken from Santa Maria della Pieta and made a quick quill sketch of his finished piece. Even on the page the chandelier seemed to stand out in a crystal relief.
Corradino guarded the book well, wearing it next to his skin at all times, but knew that even if his fellows could see it, they would not be able to decipher its secrets. He also knew that the other maestri laughed at him, and passed around the jest that Manin even wore his book when he pleasured a woman. He was truly an unusual man. But a genius, oh yes, truly a genius.
The testament to his genius was in every palazzo in Venice, every church, every grand eating house. It was in every shining chalice he made, every mirror smooth as the lagoon in summer, even every glass bubble or bonbon he made as Carnevale favours. They all had the same glow of an expensive gem. And now he knew that his newest work would illuminate the dark, vaulted ceilings of the Santa Maria della Pieta like no light they had ever seen. And it would sing, as many of his pieces spoke or sang. At the flick of a fingernail one of his cups would ring out the tale of the gold that painted its