VIVID colour is everywhere in Venice and nowhere is this more the case than in Murano glass, one of the most beautiful types made anywhere in the world.

The glass is named after the islands where it is made, in the Venice lagoon.

Glass has been produced on the islands for the best part of a millennium, though no one is quite sure why glassmakers first congregated there.

The two most popular theories are that the Venetian authorities either set them apart from the rest of the population because their huge furnaces constituted a fire hazard, or forced them into isolation so that visiting traders would not take the glassmakers' secrets away with them. Either way, the quality and the appearance of Murano glass was and is exceptional.

"Early Murano glass-makers were given a great boost in that they had access to soda," says Marc Weaver, co-owner of Guinevere, a Chelsea gallery that sells Murano glass. "After the sand was melted to make the glass, soda was added, which made it cleaner, lighter and easier to work with. But soda was not widely available, and so in Northern Europe much heavier, greener glass, called waldglas, was made, which meant that Murano glass was highly prized."

The proximity of the Near East also meant that Murano glassmakers were able to learn from that region's very sophisticated design methods, which they incorporated into their own wares, producing much more decorative glass than that to be found in Northern Europe, a distinction that lasts to this day.

After that initial flowering, though, the Murano glass industry suffered some setbacks as Venice fell under the auspices of France, which had its own glassmaking centres, and then the Habsburg Empire, which favoured Bohemian glass.

The glassmaking skills were, however, never lost and in the middle of the 19th century Murano again began to attain prominence in the glassmaking world, which it holds to this day. Items made from the 1940s to the 1960s are now particularly in demand, while some firms set up in the middle of the last century, including Venini, Vistosi and Bianconi, are now internationally famous.

The firms have also brought manufacturing up to a whole new level. One style frequently found involves multiple layers of casing: typically, a vase could have three differently coloured shapes, the outer being clear, the middle red, and the inner yellow.

Guglielmo Vistosi founded a firm which went on to bring sculptural influences into glassmaking: the glass was cast, rather than being moulded. Bianconi, meanwhile, was responsible for the pezzato style, which created a chequerboard effect on the glass of many colours. A vase made in the 1950s in this style would now cost about Pounds 8,000.

"Prices have risen sharply in the last five to ten years," says Kevin Weaver, also of Guine-vere, and a collector of Murano glass. "The minimalist style that has been so popular in interior decoration over the past ten years provides an excellent setting for Murano glass. The individual pieces, often vividly coloured and decorative, stand out in a minimalist setting in a way they wouldn't in the kind of interior scattered with tapestries and gilded chairs."

Indeed, 20th-century glass from all over the world has become increasingly collectible over the past decade for much the same reason. Murano itself, meanwhile, is attainable by rich collectors and those of more modest means alike, for while the one-off pieces signed by famous makers go for thousands, there are many unsigned pieces made that are much more reasonable and simply go under the generic name of Murano glass.

"Pieces that are made for general sale rather than being specifically commissioned are quite reasonable," says Kevin Weaver. "In the 1930s, ice buckets were made in the shape of top hats -you can still find these for about Pounds 500."

Indeed, you can also find cheaper vases starting at just a couple of hundred pounds, if that, if you shop around. The internet has made it much easier to see the variety on offer, and a website entitled Murano Magic will give you a full hist-ory of the glassworks.

WHAT TO BUY AND WHERE

When building a collection of Murano glass, there are many places to shop, starting with specialist dealers.

The Weavers at Guinevere have several pieces in stock, including a pair of vases by Vistosi. Costing Pounds 780 for the pair, they are made of frosted glass that has been textured to look like a tree trunk and date from about 1950. The Weavers also have a large pink opaline vase from the same period for Pounds 1,350.

Another dealer who specialises in Murano glass is Alexander von Moltke. He has a gallery in London and will be exhibiting at the forthcoming Olympia Spring Art & Antiques Fair in the first week of March. In its publicity material, the fair is using a stunning 1940s Murano chandelier Alexander recently sold for Pounds 3,500.

His gallery currently has a clear glass Murano chandelier in stock and several vases, including a pink and blue one, for sale at Pounds 820.

These are at the more expensive end of the scale, but there are cheaper items.

Geoff Taffler is an engineer by day, but at the weekends runs a gallery on Portobello Road, London, specialising in Murano from Pounds 30 to Pounds 160.

Marco Polo International, in Venice, has an online gallery with exquisite pieces, including a vase in which goldfish appear to be swimming through the glass, on offer at Euro 990.

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers