The creation and restoration of artistic stained glass are the first activities of Emanuela Di Bella that interprets the needs of the customer sensibly.
Thanks to the various techniques of glass art, it creates highly suggestive art glasses, one of which is lead glass, the technique of bonding flat glass pieces with welded lead profiles is very ancient and dates back to the Middle Ages. With the sophisticated technique of blowing the glass, cutting the base and neck of the big bubble obtained by blowing the air with the barrel in the glass that became soft in the blast furnace, quite small and small plates, very different from the modern ones obtained. That is why older windows have few colors and are made up of many pieces.
Still today many churches require new or new windows, or the restoration of the more or less ancient ones. The technique has changed little. An enamel cutter is used, which has a toothed toe in a hard alloy almost like a roller-shaped diamond rather than the sharp tip of an iron, so that the tiles are almost perfect to the edges and not cut into pieces. In addition, the range of colors and tones of modern glass is huge and allows the designer a nearly pictorial representation of the projects.
Today, the designer and the performer of stained glass are very much spent on the same person, while before they were two distinct figures. There was the painter who painted and painted the subject and a group of glass holders who performed it, probably with a glacial master who led them.
Over 1000 years of stained glass history have followed many styles, according to the demand, first only ecclesial then lay and bourgeois, the taste of the era, the designer’s personality and the country.
At the end of the 19th century Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, invented a new way to tie the glass by replacing the lead profile with a thin copper ribbon wrapped around the perimeter of the glassy tile and then loosened tin. This technique has allowed a more solid, light and ductile structure, and the convexity of the glazing. A real revolution! Today is the most widespread technique, especially in private homes and public places, especially after the discovery that lead is toxic to the touch and its inhaled fumes cause saturation.
