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Murano Millefiori Pendant

Millefiori is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware.

The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers). A. Pellatt (in his book "Curiosities of Glass Making") was the first to use the term "millefiori", which appeared in the Oxford Dictionary in 1849. The beads were called mosaic beads before that time. While the use of this technique long precedes the term millefiori, it is now frequently associated with Venetian glassware.

More recently, the millefiori technique has been applied to polymer clays and other materials. Because polymer clay is quite pliable and does not need to be heated and reheated in order to fuse it, it is much easier to produce millefiori patterns than with glass.

Another material, to which the millefiori techniques has been applied, is paraffin wax. Again, due to the low melting point of wax and its extreme pliability, the material is easier to produce millefiori than glass. This technique seems to have been invented by a 'Stoney' French in the late 1950's. he passed on his techniques to an employee, a Danny Ruddick who returned to Israel to found 'Jerusalem Candles' which by the early '90s were selling millions of $'s worth of millefiore candles into the U.S. and Europe from factories in Tel Aviv, San Diego and Rotterdam. Unfortunately, before 'Stoney' French died in a plane crash, he had also sold his millefiori techniques to a Chinese businessman. As a result by the mid-90's U.S. and European markets were awash with cheap versions and the whole market for quality millefiore candles disappeared almost overnight. An English company 'Stoneglow' staggered on for a while, moving over to gel candles. An African company 'Swazi' candles still manufactures for tourism, using millefiore discs still made by the remnants of the trade in Tel Aviv. An Englishman, Ken Parsons, has moved on from his own independently produced millefiore candles business -'Spectrawax', to producing millefiore wax and fibre glass resin laminate lampshades.

Millefiore glass pendant

The making of Millefiori beads involves two glass making techniques. Until the 15th century, Murano glassmakers were only producing drawn Rosetta beads made from mould-made Rosetta canes. Rosetta beads are made by the layering of a variable number of layers of glass of various colors in a mould, and by pulling the soft glass from both ends until the cane has reached the desired thickness. It is then cut into short segments for further processing. The murrine used for decorative purposes were manufactured by applying the same technique, and sold to the lamp workers who made Millefiori beads by weight.

Millefiori beads, 1920s

The millefiori technique involves the production of glass canes or rods, known as murrine, with multicolored patterns which are viewable only from the cut ends of the cane. Millefiori beads are made of plain wound glass bead cores. Thin slices of cut cane (murrine) are pressed into the bead surface, forming mosaic-like patterns, while the glass is still hot. Millefiori beads can be decorated sparingly with a small number of murrine or they can be covered entirely, either by the same style of murrine, or by a combination of two or more styles, applied to form a flush, smooth surface, or left protruding from the bead. The manufacture of mosaic beads can be traced back to Ancient Rome, Phoenician and Alexandrine times. Canes, probably made in Italy, have been found as far away as 8th century archaeological sites in Ireland,^[1] and millefiori was used in thin slices to brilliant effect in the early 7th century Anglo-Saxon jewelery from Sutton Hoo. Although the Millefiori technique was developed in Murano, Italy in the 15th century^{[citation needed]}, the heyday of Millefiori bead manufacture ranged from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.

The Millefiori technique is a labour intensive process. Each Millefiori item is individually and painstakingly handmade.

• Mille-fleur, a French term used to refer to a background composed of small flowers.