 | Evidence for the use of glass in the ancient world is widespread, The Roman historian Pliny attributed the discovery of glass to a troupe of seafaring merchants who used chunks of the saltpeter their ship was carrying to prop up their cooking pots on the beach, The cooking fire fused the sand and ashes with the saltpeter to form the first man-made glass… |
 | Around the 3rd and 4th century CE, there was a popular movement in commissioning medallions of glass with engraved gold designs known today as gold glasses. These have been found in the catacombs in Rome where they were pressed into the morter of the grave. It seems they were personal use items probably used as a bowl, each one having an individual design… |
 | One clever Mesopotamian managed to form a glass tube and blow a bubble at the end, creating the first blowpipe and hence the art of glassblowing. The first metal blowpipe came into widespread use in the 1st or second century before Christ and glass production soared, particularly in the Roman world, where glass became available to the rich and the poor… |
 | In Russia, glass manufacturing existed from time immemorial. But in the pre-Christian period, glass manufacturers worked as jewelers, outputting beads, rings, bracelets etc. Glass manufacturing significantly gained in scope in the 9-1Oth centuries… |
 | Accounts vary on the earliest use of stained glass mainly because it was invented before recorded history. Some historians claim it was first used as a domestic luxury in the homes of wealthy Romans in the first century… |
 | Colored enamels were first used on glass by the Romans, and then by Islamic glassmakers from the 13th century onward. Enameling flourished in Venice in the 15th century, particularly on cristallo glass, a lightweight, thin, clear glass developed by Angelo Barovier in around 1450… |
 | Enameled and gilded glass is the best known and historically most treasured type of Islamic glass. The production of such art glass was the specialty of the regions controlled by the Ayubids and the Mamluks (present-day Egypt and Syria) in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries… |
 | Milk Glass is a term used by art glass-makers for opaque white glass. The German term is milch–glass, the Italian term is lattimo (from latte, milk) and the French term is blanc-de-lait (milk white) or verre-de-lait. It looks like white porcelain… |
 | In the mid-17th century Johann Schaper, a Hallsmaler in Nuremburg, developed the use of transparent brown and black enamels. Known as Schwarzlot (black lead), this style remained fashionable until the 1750s and was adopted by the Bohemians, whose leading exponent was Ignaz Preissler… |
 | In the early 18th century Zwichellgoldglas was developed. Gold or silver leaf was applied to a body, engraved with a design, and then covered with a layer of clear glass… |
