The Roman Empire was a treasure house of blown glass. Glass, which had required so much time and skill, was irreversibly altered by the introduction of a tool to blow air inside of it. Thus, blown glass was created. This made glass something that anyone could attain and large quantities became available in every conceivable shape and color. Much of it was used to add a fashionable touch to each morning and evening in the form of a perfume bottle.

By refracting rays of light, cut glass continually glitters. The cuts were performed in Rome, Persia and other Islamic countries, and the results reached as far as the Shoso-in in Nara, Japan.

Those who created glass could never have imagined the changes that were to occur over many years and the mysterious attraction that glass came to have. Iridescence must then have seemed like a nasty trick played on them by the gods