A little more than 2,000 years ago, a Roman glassworker did something that dramatically changed the course of history. He blew a puff of air through a hollow rod into a gob of hot glass. The gob inflated into a bubble. At that moment, glassblowing was born. Glassblowing provided a way to make

Pictured below are the basic tools used by glassblowers working "at the furnace" (as opposed to those working "at the lamp" — "flameworking" or "lampworking"). They are pretty much unchanged since the first century A.D. Incredibly, a Roman-period worker could

See glass scholar and artist William Gudenrath demonstrate historical glassmaking techniques. Façon de Venise Goblet Although in the 16th century the maximum penalty for a glassblower leaving Murano, the “glass island” of Venice, to work elsewhere was death, many did. The Low Countries became home