Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 36 (2021) 102832 Available online 18 March 2021 2352-409X/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Glass colored by glass: Review of the pick-up decoration in early modern Europe F. Pulido Valente a, b, * , I. Coutinho a, b , T. Medici b , M. Vilarigues a, b a Department of Conservation and Restoration, Faculdade de Ciˆ encias e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal b Research Unit VICARTE – “Vidro e Cerˆ amica para as Artes”, Campus Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Pick-up decoration Millefori Glass Splashing Rosette Renaissance period ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of an important glass decorative technique of the Renaissance: the pick-up decoration, including millefori and splashed technique. Different subjects of investigation are linked: I) history and nomenclature, II) production technique, III) a survey of literature on archaeological fndings, and IV) chemical composition. The results of an exhaustive survey on available data concerning the archaeological contexts where glass fragments decorated with this technique were found are presented, in order to establish the possibility of the use of decorative patterns as an indicator of provenance. This work also proposes a uniformed nomenclature to be applied to pick-up techniques. Comparing the artefacts that were found in archaeological contexts with the objects displayed in museums one can note that the frst ones do not follow the same trend than the last, either in forms or in colours’ selection. So far, Portugal is the country with more studied archaeological contexts where glass fragments decorated with this technique were uncovered and different and unique patterns for murrine were identifed. This work brings new and exciting insights about the production and trading of glass with pick-up decoration in Europe during the Renaissance period. 1. Introduction Pick-up decoration on glass consists of picking-up with the hot glass gather, and melting on its surface, coloured glass slices, sliced glass canes that have patterns in its cross-section (murrine), or gold leaf. The gather is then blown to form the glass object (Gudenrath, 2012). The use of coloured canes, whether in section or in length, to produce and decorate glass is one of the most ancient and intricate techniques of glass history and it long precedes the invention of blown glass. The oldest known glass objects ornamented with canes slices were found in today Iran and Iraq, dated to 1500 and 1000 BCE. They were obtained by mosaic technique, fusing the slices in a mould (Moretti, 2012; Barovier Mentasti, 2012; Page, 2014). The production of mosaic glass ended in the 13th century BCE, emerging again in Egypt during the second half of the 5th century BCE (Nenna and Gratuze, 2009). It fourished during the 4th century BCE, with Pharaoh Nectanebo II (c. 360–343 BCE) and during the Hellenistic period (Tait, 2012; Whitehouse, 2012). In Roman times, magnifcent artefacts made with this technique appeared. These include glass vessels displaying a diversity of colour combinations and murrine patterns: animals, images of Gods, fowers, acanthus leaves, or theatrical masks (Moretti, 2012; Tait, 2012; Whitehouse, 2012). After the discovery of glass-blowing in the frst half of the 1st century BCE, Romans developed the technique to decorate the surface of a glass object by picking up glass slices with a gather of hot glass (Moretti, 2012; Tait, 2012; Whitehouse, 2012; Stern and Fünfschilling, 2020). This new technique was adopted for a short time by Islamic glassworkers in the Egyptian region, around 6th-8th century (Carboni, 2001), but it is in the Renaissance that it reaches its apogee in the hands of the Mura- nese glass masters. They developed and improved complex pick-up glass decoration, possibly inspired by the observation of Roman mosaic glass recovered from Altino, a site early known for its ancient glass treasures (Barovier Mentasti, 2012; Eisen, 1919; Helmut, 1995; Moretti, 2012). The patterns resulting from the use of the pick-up technique can be divided in two big groups: millefori and splashing (Fig. 1a and 1.b). Millefori is an Italian word that literally means “thousand fowers” and describes the fnal effect of an object that is produced with colourful * Corresponding author at: Department of Conservation and Restoration, Faculdade de Ciˆ encias e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. E-mail address: m.valente@campus.fct.unl.pt (F. Pulido Valente). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.102832 Received 15 July 2020; Received in revised form 19 January 2021; Accepted 20 January 2021