Everyday Italian: Drinking vessels
The first in a series of posts about the little things that round out how you present yourself in persona.
This episode brought to you by Silverwing’s Law #43:
The most important thing is a cool mug or goblet. Without a mug or goblet, you end up with a paper cup or a modern bottle or an aluminum can in your hand and you are a SLOB. Add a cool mug or goblet and immediately you, too, are cool.
~ Duke Finvarr de Taahe
More than just utilitarian vehicles, drinking vessels in renaissance Italy were another way to show your wealth, status, and general hipness, and you did it with glass. Earlier in the Italian renaissance period (in late 15th century, give or take a few years) the glassmakers of Murano were really hitting their stride, and imitators were doing their best to keep up. This made glass beakers, goblets, dishes, jugs and lampshades ubiquitous and significantly more affordable for a broader spectrum of people, (and, if I’m completely honest, periodically pushed the bounds of good taste). Regardless, finding a glass from which to drink your delicious Italian wine is one of those things that can really pull your look together properly.
For such a fragile object, plenty of excellent period examples survived to give you a good idea of the range of glassware available to our renaissance counterparts.
Not everything was coloured or enameled, though. Towards the end of our period, pristinely clear glass was an artistic marvel and quickly became the favourite of the social elite.
(They call it a wine glass, but it looks like a dare, to me.) At any rate, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
"During the Renaissance, Venetian glassmakers, working on the island of Murano, were celebrated across Europe for their fine and sparkling work. Called "cristallo" emulating the clarity of rock crystal, in the hands of the most skilled glassblowers the medium could be delightfully manipulated, variously stretched paper-thin flat, or playfully twisted or blown into moulds with spectacular patterns."
If you’re not close friends with a glass blower, and are looking for affordable options, a quick pass through eBay turned up a reasonable number of modern glasses that could get you by, especially if you tarted them up with glass enamel paint from the craft store.
QUICK UPDATE: Anthropologie has these beauties, at this writing:
QUICK UPDATE II: This SCA merchant has replicas.
Interestingly, beyond some novelty items meant for dinner entertainment – puzzle cups, and the like – I didn’t really see much evidence of ceramics or pottery for drinking in Italy. However, further North and in England pottery abounds, so if you, like me, adhere to “Death before dishonour; Nothing before coffee,” there are plenty of resources for period clay vessels suitable to hot drinks that you could always say someone brought you back as a souvenir.
Lead illustration is a detail from The Last Supper of Ognissanti by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence, 1480. Check out those little glass tumblers, yo!
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