Napoleone Martinuzzi

Napoleone Martinuzzi (1892–1977) was an Italian sculptor and designer active mainly in the Murano glass sector, best remembered for creating the revolutionary pulegoso glass. Born into a family of Venetian glassmakers, he studied sculpture in Rome, where he came into contact with the artistic ferment of the early twentieth century. He was one of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s preferred artists, personally chosen to create sculptures and glass decorations for the Vittoriale degli Italiani. This reputation led to his appointment as director of the Murano Glass Museum, a position he held from 1922 to 1931; around the same period he met Paolo Venini and began collaborating with him, becoming a partner and artistic director of Venini’s glassworks. During his collaboration with Venini, which lasted from 1925 to 1932, he steered the company’s production toward a style indebted to French Art Déco and the Italian “Novecento” movement. The invention of pulegoso glass dates to 1928 and arose from the insight of using, for expressive and decorative purposes, a feature that had traditionally been considered a flaw in glassmaking—namely the formation of small air bubbles during production, which makes the glass more porous and compact. He later partnered (from 1932 to 1936) with the glassmaker Vittorio Zecchin, after which he left the glass sector entirely to devote himself exclusively to sculpture.