Art of Glass

Known as THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BOOK ON GLASSMAKING, Art of Glass was first published, in Italian, in 1612, as L'Arte Vetraria by Antonio Neri who claimed to have experience of glassmaking in several countries and described the best practice of that time, particularly in making coloured glasses. A second edition printed in 1661 made the work more widely known.An English translation by Christopher Merrett MD, one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, was published in 1662. Merrett...
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Known as THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BOOK ON GLASSMAKING, Art of Glass was first published, in Italian, in 1612, as L'Arte Vetraria by Antonio Neri who claimed to have experience of glassmaking in several countries and described the best practice of that time, particularly in making coloured glasses. A second edition printed in 1661 made the work more widely known.An English translation by Christopher Merrett MD, one of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, was published in 1662. Merrett added very extensive notes of his own which almost doubled the length of the book.That text became the master for subsequent editions. It was eventually translated into Latin, French, German, and Spanish, and reprinted at least twenty times over the course of almost two centuries.This edition reproduces Merrett's original layout, including the printers ornaments, but is set more legibly and corrects some errors.It is introduced by an essay written in 1962 by Professor W. E. S. Turner FRS which explains the background and importance of this work.