The Impiraresse: the story of an ancient craft that speaks about resistance
Impiraresse (1960) - Maspez via Wikimedia Commons
Venice and glass have shared a long-standing bond: for centuries, the famous beads made from it travelled across continents and cultures, becoming one of the most recognizable symbols of the lagoon’s craftsmanship. Behind this economy, however, lay a vast system of female labour that has often remained at the margins of historical narratives. We are talking about the impiraresse.
Sitting in small groups, with dozens of thin needles clasped in their hands, these women populated the calli of the districts of Castello and Cannaregio between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their task was to string together — impirare in the Venetian dialect — rigadin, incamicià, cremette, macà, as well as tosche, papagà, pive — also known as brovadini — and burattini: tiny glass seed beads produced in the furnaces of Murano, assembled into bundles of 240 strands. In 2020, this craft was recognised by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Foto 1: Infilatrici di perle-Impiraresse, S. Piero di Castello, Venezia, foto di Filippi Tomaso (XIX secolo), archivio IRE, Venezia; foto 2: Infilatrici di perle-Impiraresse, Corte ignota, foto di Filippi Tomaso (XIX/XX secolo), archivio IRE, Venezia
Infilatrici di perle-Impiraresse, foto di Filippi Tomaso, Archivio IRE, Venezia, foto 1 e 3: Castello (XIX/XX secolo), foto 2: Genova, Palazzo Musso Piantelli, colonia di sfollati veneziani (XX secolo).
It is a story shaped by beauty, but also by harsh and underpaid labour — a reality that led the impiraresse to organize strikes and union demands as early as the late nineteenth century, making them among the first women workers in Italy to mobilize collectively.
Today, only a handful of artisans from that world remain. One of them is Luisa Conventi who, in her workshop-museum, preserves the tools, photographs, and stories of a craft that was at once a form of work, a social identity, and an act of resistance.
Luisa Conventi nel suo laboratorio-museo Ditta "Gioia"- La Corte delle Impiraresse - Foto di Elena Sophia Ilari
Gli spazi del laboratorio "Gioia" e del museo "La Corte delle Impiraresse" di Luisa Conventi, assieme ad alcune sue creazioni - Foto di Elena Sophia Ilari
The workshop where Luisa Conventi still practices her craft today is called Ditta Gioia and is located in the Cannaregio district, not far from Venezia Santa Lucia railway station. Founded in 1987, its story actually began much earlier, within a family that had worked with beads for generations.
With the gradual decline of the industry, Conventi chose to transform the old workshop by incorporating “La Corte delle Impiraresse”, a small museum space that preserves the traces of an ancient craft which still speaks to the present day.
Alcune tipologie di conterie: il processo di creazione prevede la lavorazione di canne di vetro forate che, tagliate in piccoli pezzi, danno origine a una moltitudine di minuscole perle di vetro - Foto di Elena Sophia Ilari
Alcuni strumenti da lavoro: la sessola è il contenitore in legno in cui sono presenti le perle. Viene poi immerso il pettine con aghi curvi che permettono di recuperare le conterie. I fili vengono poi fatti passare all'interno-Foto di Elena Sophia Ilari
Yet the museum also tells a story of resistance and struggles for workers’ rights. “The impiraresse were among the first women to go on strike, in 1872,” explains Luisa Conventi. “Their work was very poorly paid and wages were calculated per mazzo, a bundle made up of 240 strands. That is where the Italian expression farsi il mazzo comes from.”
As Conventi explains, many women also worked from home through the system of the mistre — intermediaries who distributed materials on behalf of the factories while keeping part of the workers’ earnings for themselves. “It was almost a gangmaster system,” Conventi continues. This was one of the reasons why the women began organizing strikes and union campaigns: “The major struggles of the impiraresse took place mainly at the beginning of the twentieth century. They were partly directed against the factories, in order to obtain fixed wage rates, but above all against the mistre. They even demanded their abolition.”
According to Conventi, the Lega delle Impiraresse, a women’s trade union organization, was founded in 1904. Shortly afterwards, more than 2,000 workers launched a major three-week strike against employers’ pressure, eventually winning a wage increase.
Today, there are no longer as many impiraresse in Venice as there once were. Yet according to Luisa Conventi, this is not a craft destined to disappear, but rather one that must evolve: “Craftsmanship can come back to life if it succeeds in moving closer to art, creating something unique that is capable of engaging with contemporary reality.”
Foto di Elena Sophia Ilari
This article was originally written in another language. We edited the text with the support of an IA-based language tool.
Questo articolo è stato scritto originariamente in in un'altra lingua. Abbiamo rivisto il testo con il supporto di uno strumento linguistico IA.
