From the tiny island of Murano to museums all over the world, Venetian glassware has a long, innovative, and, at times, dark history.

Join Professor Catherine Kovesi on a journey to Venice through the fascinating stories of its most famous export. Discover the role Murano played in fueling the Republic of Venice’s trade and exploration, its rise and fall from the pinnacle of luxury to dying artisan craft, and its legacy today as an inspiration for modern designers in the Venice Biennale and beyond.

What can we learn about La Serenissima through the history of her majestic Murano?

Speaker
Catherine Kovesi is a historian at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on debates surrounding luxury consumption in early modern Italy to the present and on Florentine and Venetian social and cultural history. Formerly Chair of the Discipline of History and also of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, Catherine has held fellowships at Oriel College, Oxford, at the University of Western Australia, and at the Harvard Centre for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence. From 2013-15 she was a partner investigator in the Leverhulme Trust-funded International Luxury Network and she is currently co-General Editor of Bloomsbury’s forthcoming six volume A Cultural History of Luxury. Catherine has a deep knowledge and love of the city of Venice, bringing students there biennially since 2007 and curating bespoke cultural visits to the city, including for alumni of the University of Melbourne and for Australian donors to the Venice Biennale Arte in 2019 on behalf of Creative Australia. .