In the Heart of Tuscany
The Centrovetro Consortium gathers together the glass industries operating in the city of Empoli and its surrounding district; a district which has made a decisive contribution to the birth and development of the manufacture of artistic glass. Here is a place in which the art of the great Tuscan masters is married to the capacities of the enterprises and their workers to fashion glass with expert craft following the precepts of an age-old manufacturing tradition.

The Origins in the Middle Ages
The glass industry has its roots in the neighbouring Valdelsa in the area of today’s Municipalities of San Gimignano, Montaione and Gambassi, where the manufacture of glass is first documented in the 13th century. Already in 1230, near Castello di Campiorbiano [Campiorbiano Castle] at the gates of San Gimignano, there was a glassworks in operation where various types of glass were produced. In the mid-14th century, the Black Death, which hit the Valdelsa hard, caused the glass master craftsmen of the Valdelsa to disperse to other towns in the region, among them Empoli. The Valdelsa masters emigrated to as many as 12 Italian regions, providing a strong thrust to the spread of glass manufacture throughout the whole of Italy.

The Age of the Medici and the Decline of Empoli
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Medici commissions stimulated a large development in the production of glass objects and attracted glass master craftsmen from as far away as Murano. Florence thus became one of the greatest glass manufacturing centres in Italy, with highly prized pieces coming out of the Medici furnaces. With the devastation caused by Emperor Charles V’s Spanish troops, however, all such activities went into a general decline and there was a long period of depression and economic crisis. Empoli suffered a devastating sack which brought about a decline destined to last for two centuries.

The Revival Brought About by Grand Duke Leopold’s Reforms
In the second half of the 18th century, Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo’s reforms brought about a revival and a very rapid development of the Empoli glass industry, which resumed the production of flasks, green glass bottles, and objects in white glass or “half crystal” in imitation of English crystals. The opening of the Florence-Pisa railway consolidated these activities, resulting in an unprecedented expansion. In 1850 the factory of the “Vetreria del Vivo e Ristori” [Brand-new and Restoration Glassworks] employed 85 workmen and 60 raffia-plaiters.