Venice master artisans tours: the true Venice experience

A 2 to 4 hour, custom made tour selecting your favorite Venetian maestros. It is a unique experience since the knowledge of current master craftsmen's skills have been handed down from generation to generation. The intricate knowledge of their craft may be 1000s of years old – some even dating back to the Romans and other ancient cultures.

Want to learn the secrets of Venetian Artisans or witness a true maestro at work? With a unique custom made Venice artisans tours, our guide will give you the opportunity to come face to face with your own personal selection of master artisans in their workshops, located all over the city. Its duration will depend on your choices and can last from three to five hours.

Venice master artisans tours

Venice was not just a port of call or a city of trade. It has also been sustained since its early days by a large company of artisans and craftsmen. The lagoon city became a major production center of refined handcrafts exported throughout Europe and the Middle East; not to mention a market of luxury goods and manufacture that until 1800 was patronized by the most established nobility on the continent and their descendants.

Using your personalized Venice artisans tours itinerary, we will take you behind the scenes at your  selected artisans’ workshops and discover some of the best-known and oldest handicrafts of Venice are created. You might choose a combination of artisans and:

  • learn the secrets of making marbled paper, one of the most ancient paper decoration techniques originating thousands of years ago in Japan;  
  • observe or participate in a mask making process, the most creative and artistic one in Europe;
  • participate in an ancient book binding workshop;
  • admire artistic blown glass objects, decorative pieces and works of art; 
  • discover the most spectacular hand woven silk velvets and brocades;
  • visit an original gondola yard, producing the world famous and elegant rowing boats of Venice, custom made oars and the famous forcola (oar holder);
  • visit a glass mosaic workshop where the small tiles are used to design contemporary decorative objects or restore the churches’ ancient cycles of mosaics;
  • experience how glass miniature sculptures are made;
  • see how hand produced gold leaves are made and used by the gilders to make gilded objects;

This tour has to be organized ahead of time and  according to each artisan’s availability. In some workshops there is an entry charge.

Highlights: one or more artisans of your choice among the Venetian art crafts ateliers.


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