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From the tiny island of Murano to museums all over the world, Venetian glass has a long, innovative, and at times very dark history. Historian Prof Catherine Kovesi takes us on a journey to the Italian city of Venice, introducing the complex stories of Venetian glass from its virtuosic chandeliers to its tiny beads’ central role in colonial conquest, and its contemporary evolution into cutting edge artistic creations.
What can we learn about La Serenissima through the history of the island group known as Murano?
This program is part of NGV Italia supported by the Italian Australian Foundation.
About NGV Italia
Discover stories of Italian art, design, culture and life in the NGV Collection through dedicated events and resources, and explore two millennia of Italian painting, sculpture, prints and drawings, decorative arts and textiles.
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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.
