Between the two World Wars, the South of Italy was an important producer of glassware, in particular, Naples and its surroundings (Nola and Frattamaggiore). Despite the glorious past of glassware production in this area, today it is completely overlooked and almost no trace has been preserved either physically or in the historical records, beyond what I have discussed here. I was, however, able to find some dormant archives, which had never been consulted or removed from storage, from one of the largest cristallerie11 in the city, Cristalleria Nazionale.12 The company was known for its trendy items in the 1930s, and especially for a futuristic-design set with a triangular black handle, exhibited at the Venice Biennale d’Arte in 1934 and bought for the Ministry of the Interior (Fig. 3). In 1938 the factory was one of the first in Italy to launch an unbreakable drinking glass.13

An equally important glassware production region during the interwar period was Tuscany, more specifically, Empoli and Colle di Val d’Esla, both active until the 1970s.14 On a local scale, the bibliography on Tuscan glass for this period is relatively rich.15 However, the regional museums struggle to maintain the memory of a defunct local industry. The Empoli Glass Museum has not preserved any archives but exhibits examples of the typical heavy green glassware from the main local factories, three of which are listed in the inventory by the FNFIVC.16 Particularlyknown for its effort to modernize rustic table items is Vetraria E. Taddei & C. (Fig. 4).17 Another glass town in Tuscany is Colle di Val d’Elsa, which also has a small museum preserving around 750 works of local glass from the fifteenth to the end of the twentieth century.18 One of the largest tableware producers in Italy was located in this town: the Vetrerie Operaie Riunite Modesto Boschi, founded by Modesto Boschi in 1921.19

Trained workers from Colle di Val d’Elsa were important resources in the development of producing vetro comune at an industrial scale in Murano, as some of them joined the oldest cristalleria on the island, Cristalleria e Vetreria Veneziana già Franchetti.20 Another important—and still functioning—cristalleria in Murano was founded in 1925 by the manager of the Cristalleria Franchetti, Ugo Nason, and it contributed significantly to widespread public access to modern Murano glassware.21 Now forgotten, the Società Veneziana Conterie e Cristalleria22 was fairly well placed in the glassware market, as its advertisements appeared in almost every issue of Rassegna ufficiale delle Federazioni Nazionali Fasciste delle Industrie del Vetro e della ceramica between 1938 and 1944, and Domus featured the latest products of this company in its series of articles entitled “Cristalleria Italiana” in 1938.

This small town near Savona was a very important center of glass production and the Museo dell’Arte Vetraria Altarese’s rich collection of the region’s glass has been published in a catalog.23 In addition, some local publications preserved in the museum allowed me to learn the story of Altarese glass.24 Exceptionally, in the 1930s the local glass factories, especially Società Cooperativa Artistico Vetraria (SAV), tried to integrate up-to-date styles for their everyday-glass production.25 The use of black glass for the foot of drinking glasses in a simple, rigorous, and geometrical shape is the most widely diffused (Fig. 5).

Milan is the industrial capital in Italy, but many of its factories remain to be studied. I would mention only the Vetrerie Peruzzi, Bozzi & Figli, producer of glassware for restaurants and bars,26 and the MIVA, specialized in glass insulators, which became popular in 1943 for its tableware and cooking tools in heat-resistant borosilicate glass, often referred by the brand name PYREX.27 Additionally, an important source I found in Milan was the commercial catalogs from the department store Rinascente,28 which allowed me to study the glassware for sale on the Italian market and to discern its evolution during the 1920s and 1930s.

Bormioli Rocco & Figlio Vetreria still exists as an industry giant and is especially known for one of the first jars with a spiral locking mechanism entirely in glass. The company has preserved its archives, which allowed me to study their history.

Studying the Italian glassware industry during the Fascist regime is challenging because it requires varied approaches combining artistic, social, political, and economic points of view. I will deepen my analysis and publish the rich, mostly hitherto-unseen material that I was able to collect, in hopes of offering researchers a tool to broaden the study of Italian glass and to fill the current void, to whatever extent possible, in Italian glass historiography.