The tale of Murano’s famiglia Seguso is the stuff of which Italian cinema is made. Fractured, fractious, and feuding families over the course of 600 years beginning with Francesco Seguso inspired this glassmaking dynasty to untapped levels of creativity in a game of one-upmanship. Now two branches of this prolifically talented family tree covering 19 generations have entwined. The 15-year-old Seguso Viro – available stateside for the past 11 years and known for its gorgeously colorful artglass vases and bowls – has acquired Seguso Vetri d’Arte, the 75-year-old operation founded by Antonio Seguso, but not in the control of the Seguso family for more than 30 years.

For Seguso Viro patriarch Giampaolo Seguso, the procurement is a homecoming of sorts. “We’re so happy that on the eve of Seguso Vetri d’Arte’s 75th anniversary, the company is returning to the hands of the family,” Giampaolo says. “One could say that the Seguso family has come home.”

The Seguso Vetri d’Arte purchase was son Gianluca Seguso’s idea originally. The eldest of Giampaolo’s children – he spearheads U.S. operations – Gianluca says there’s a certain simpatico symmetry in buying the business. “It’s something that’s part of us that we were missing for a long time,” he says. “I felt personally it would be nice to bring us together. I was interested in this company for awhile and this year, just in time for the 75th anniversary, the time was right.”
For decades Seguso Vetri d’Arte operated within minutes of the Seguso Viro factory on the tiny isle of Murano. A little family history goes a long way explaining why the linking of these two operations is significant in the Seguso saga. It was Antonio Seguso who founded Seguso Vetri d’Arte, in 1933. In time his sons joined the operation, the most talented of which were glass maestros (as they are called in Murano) Archimede and Angelo. The ambitious Archimede quickly broke off to start his own operation in 1942 while Angelo continued on as the design vision behind Seguso Vetri d’Arte. Eventually Archimede’s own son Giampaolo joined his business, but like his father before him he departed to make his own name with Seguso Viro. It was Giampaolo’s intent to take his operation to a global level and he enlisted the help of his three sons, Gianluca, Pierpaolo, and GianAndrea.

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