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Murano's glassmaking history formally began in 1291, when the Venetian Republic ordered the city's glass furnaces relocated there -- officially to remove the fire risk they posed to Venice's densely packed wooden buildings, though the isolation also made it easier to keep the trade's techniques from leaving the lagoon.
Murano's glassmakers became a protected and privileged class, granted rights unusual for artisans of the era, including permission for a glassmaker's daughter to marry into Venetian nobility. In exchange, they were forbidden to leave the Republic -- a restriction reportedly enforced harshly, since a defector who set up a rival workshop abroad threatened Venice's near-monopoly on techniques like crystalline glass and millefiori.
Murano's glass industry declined along with the Venetian Republic itself in the 18th and 19th centuries, as competition from Bohemian and other European glassmakers eroded its former monopoly. A revival in the 19th and 20th centuries, driven by renewed interest in traditional techniques and by artists working in glass as a fine-art medium, restored much of the island's reputation.
Murano's furnaces remain active today, though the island now competes with a flood of cheaper imitation "Murano glass" sold throughout Venice -- much of it manufactured elsewhere -- making genuine Murano workshops harder to distinguish for visitors than the name alone suggests.