Room of colours

The Stanza dei colori (Room of colours) is like the lair of a wizard or a “glass conjuror” which is how Francesco Moretti was described by Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello in his treatise Perugia della bell’Epoca. The room contains over 750 bottles of all shapes and sizes filled with a wonderful array of pigments and forming a fantastic painter’s palette from which the most pernickety artist can conjure up thousands of hues, shades and nuances as though adorning a canvas. There’s also a kiln where the molten glass, fired to 600° Celcius, will fuse to the pigment and durably and indelibly fix the finest brushstrokes of the chosen colours.

Drawing on the wealth of experience of his fellow master glassworkers, Moretti embarked upon a voyage of experimentation (backed up by an in-depth study of alchemy and chemistry) to determine the perfect composition for a vitreous fusing powder and an infallible technique for formulating colours in such a way as to guarantee they would fuse to the glass ever-lastingly. The complete range of pigments have been catalogued and a proportion analysed by two students preparing their university degree dissertations.