Founded in 1921 near Venice, Venini is one of the most famous manufacturers of handcrafted contemporary artistic glass for interior decoration and lighting. 

Its founder, Paolo Venini, was a lawyer from Milan who came to Venice in 1921 at the age of 26.

Knowing little about glass, he formed a partnership with a local antiques trader by the name of Giacomo Cappellin to establish a new glassworks called Cappellin Venini & C. Between them they brought in Vittorio Zecchin to act as art director.

Zecchin was previously a painter who had worked as a free-lance designer for Artisti Barovier.

Until the introduction of Venini, Venetian glass had begun to lose its way - having been regarded as the market leader in Glass making for centuries, little effort was being made by the local artisans to improve their techniques.

Both the arts and crafts movement and the art nouveau era had passed by without any perceptible change in the designs emanating from the island of Murano in Venice. Cappellin-Venini changed that.

They began to produce simple shapes in clear or pale transparent colors, in sharp contrast to the over-decorated tourist-trade output which was the signature of much Murano glass at the time.

After four years of major successes at international exhibitions, the partnership split and Paolo Venini formed his own company, Vetri Soffiati Muranesi Venini & C. which he managed personally until his death in 1959.

Napoleone Martinuzzi (1892 - 1997, sculptor) became Venini's new partner and Art Director.

In the beginning, they continued making many items that had been designed by Vittorio Zecchin from the earlier factory. You can still find several designs, including the Veronese, the Bordone, the Caravaggio, and several others made by both Cappellin and Venini in those early years.

From 1925 to 1928 Venini's new company was developing its own new "identity".

Today the name Venini is internationally recognized, and the high standards applied by Paulo Venini have paid off. In addition to directing the company, Paulo Venini designed his own shapes and patterns from the 1930s into the 1950s.

Around 1928 Napoleone Martinuzzi began to develop his own designs. The pieces he created for Venini are still considered masterpieces, especially his vetro pulegoso (bubble glass rendered opaque by millions of bubbles), pasta vitrea (glass paste) and incamiciato (double layered colored glass). The plants and animals that he produced by these techniques are regarded as fantastic.