The art of glassmaking was born and flourished in the Venetian lagoon, at the beginning of the 5th century, by fugitives from the Hunnic and Longobardic incursions.

The Italians were the first to learn this art from the Phoenicians and the glass factories in Rome surpassed those in Syria and Egypt.

A "Domenico fiolario" is present in the deed of donation of the church of S. Giorgio in Venice to the Benedictine monks, thus providing the first documented evidence of glassmaking activity in Murano.

as fiolario or fioler (from fiola, narrow-necked glass vessel) was the name given by Venetians of the time to glassmakers.

The first products repeated late Roman and Byzantine forms: they were long-necked panciute bottles, known as 'inghistere', and 'fiole or fielle', narrow-necked bottles from which the term 'fioleri', the first name given to Venetian glassworkers, derives.

The various types of truncated cone-shaped glasses called "mojoli de girlanda et imperlati e incostati", the ancestors of the tipetti, and common table and tavern glass, are also of traditional shapes.

Other containers were commissioned by the Republic from Murano furnaces and served as measuring vessels for the sale of oil and wine in public establishments.

It should be noted that in every era, these blown-glass masterpieces, and Murano chandeliers in particular, have always been the work of the "piazza" (a team of four led by the master) and not of an individual.