Venice islands: BURANO
Located just north of Venice, the island is known throughout the world
for it specialty: Burano lace. Burano's colorful houses were painted
these brilliant colors out of the fishermen's desire to see their own
houses from far out at sea.
Today Burano is a marvelous island, a
heaven that enchants the tourists, not only for the historical themes,
but even for its charm, for the unreal silence of its mornings, for the
happy bawling and for the peculiar local dialect, that has the
characteristic to lengthen, almost to double, the consonants.
The historic traces that the island still preserves are almost all contained in the ample church devoted to S. Martin, a construction of the XVI century.
The most famous son of Burano is certainly Baldassarre Galuppi, the baroque musician called the Buranello, whose name has been given to the square on the island, where it is possible to visit the School of Lace-making (weekdays 9-18, holidays 10-16, tel. 041730034).
The art of making lace with a needle, without any underlying fabric, was developed on the island in the early years of the sixteenth century. The typical stitches used are “punto in aria” (stitch in the air), “punto a rosette” (rosette stitch) and the “punto controtagliato” (cross-cut stitch), which is heavier and more solemn with large scrolls in relief. There was a decline in production after the commercial war caused by France and it had almost disappeared when, at the end of the nineteenth century, the local craftswoman Cencia Scarpariola founded a school to hand down the secrets of Burano lace-making.
The Islands houses the Lace Museum which tells the epic story of the Burano lace makers.
Visit all the islands of Venice...