Glass blowers of Venice restore medieval church as window on their art

Giuseppe Belluardo remembers his mother’s reaction when he informed her that he – alongside his almost-retired father and brother-in-law – were planning to enter the Murano glass trade. Not only that but they were also going to rebuild a demolished medieval church.

“She thought we were crazy,” Belluardo says. “She begged us not to do it.”

Nonetheless, the three men forged on. That was in 2012. In September last year, they were able to unveil about half of the Ex Chiesa Santa Chiara, a gorgeous, if still partly crumbling, church with a chequered history. It has been transformed into Murano’s newest and most ambitious shopping and cultural destination.

The Belluardos are native Venetians and have long been in the hotel business, owning and operating small boutique establishments in the famous city. As the senior Belluardo considered retiring a few years ago, the family heard about a church in Murano, built in 1230 and originally called San Nicolo della Torre. Over the centuries it had been occupied by a number of religious groups, including Augustinian monks and Byzantine nuns. The nuns were expelled, and replaced by sisters from the Franciscan order of Santa Chiara – resulting in the name change.

In the 1800s Napoleon (who had conquered most of Italy) suppressed religious activity and the church became an industrial complex: it was used as a glass foundry, a producer of wine bottles and window panes and as administrative offices. By the late 1900s, it was abandoned.