Crisis and Revival After the Second World War
Largely destroyed by the war, Empoli’s glass industry did not meet the challenges of the new tastes of the Italian people after the war, nor did it stand up to the competition from the French, who had mechanised their production. However, from the closure of the large factories there emerged in the 1950s a large number of enterprises aiming at the artistic glassware market.
Alongside the businesses producing the glass, a myriad of small craftwork and artistic enterprises also sprang up, which began to embellish the objects in glass with decorations, etchings, special effects.
These businesses, thanks to a magic fusion of industry and art, have carried the name of Empoli and its glass once again around the world.
The manufacture of glass has thus once again become one of the principal economic activities in the whole district.

Further Information
On the Municipality of Empoli’s civic network there exists a vast section dedicated to the history of glass.
Click here to access it.
On this same site the following resources are also available:
- Gallery of pictures of glass
- Location of glassworks, active or no longer active
- Manufacturing techniques
- Glass museums in Tuscany