It isn’t easy to find (nothing is in Venice), but it’s worth the effort! After receiving conflicting directions from several locals, there it is: the unmarked and unremarkable door of Orsoni, home to one of the most extraordinary glass mosaic factories existing today.

Artists from all over the world come here to buy the gorgeous glass tessere (the small bits used in a mosaic), or simply to make a pilgrimage. There are furnaces, bins of raw glass, “libraries” of colored glass slabs, and gold leaf glass just like that used to decorate the basilica of San Marco so many centuries ago.

While the Orsoni family guards its secrets closely, the process basically consists of coloring vitreous glass paste and rolling it into small slabs. Then, once an artist or interior decorator chooses the colors and textures, the slabs are hand cut into tessere of the requested size. Each one is unique, and the uneven sizes and surfaces make the glass shine and sparkle giving any finished mosaic that magical, luminous quality that has made Orsoni famous the world over.