In Murano, where glass is as much a part of the landscape as the lagoon, Emanuel Toffolo was perhaps destined for no other path. Born in 1982 into a family of master glassmakers, he grew up in his father Cesare's workshop, soothed by the crackling of the blowpipe and the clinking of the glass rods. After graduating from the Venice Art School, he naturally turned, in 2000, to the technique of working with a blowpipe, which would become his artistic language.

Very quickly, a world took hold: that of insects. Their anatomical precision, their colors, and their forms fascinated him. What began as a hobby, developed without formal training, transformed into a vocation. The expert and supportive eye of his father encouraged him to pursue this unique path.

Recognition came in 2013, when the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass named him Artist of the Month. His pieces caught the attention of the Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, which exhibited them during Glass Weekend in 2013 and again in 2015. His international reach expanded even further a year later: Emanuel was invited to the Niijima International Glass Art Festival in Japan to lead a workshop. The Niijima Glass Museum and the Kobe Lampwork Museum subsequently acquired some of his works. In 2019, he was featured in an exhibition at the Wiener Museum of Decorative Art in Miami.

But Emanuel Toffolo's work isn't limited to art. In 2016, he combined his three passions—glass, music, and photography—to create his first documentary, Murano: The Unbearable Lightness of Glass, made with his brother Elia and Caterina Toso. Screened in Italy, the United States, and then Portugal, the film won the Best Art Feature award at the Eugene International Film Festival.

He continues this work of visual and documentary exploration with ROSIN, The Strong Side of Glass (2018), The Engravers (2020), and The Flame, The Art and the History of Lampworking (2022), the latter created in collaboration with the Corning Museum of Glass and awarded forty international prizes.

Today, his delicate, lively, almost vibrant glass insects travel the world, exhibited in galleries and museums that celebrate the precision of his technique and his entomologist-poet's eye.
Through his work, Emanuel Toffolo continues to reinvent lampworking and carry the Murano glassmaking heritage into new territories.