Nicola Causin was 17 years old when he started working with glass. "It was like falling in love," he said. That love hasn't faded after 34 years of honing his craft on Murano, a short boat ride from Venice – and the epicenter of the Venetian glass-making industry. "It's always a challenge; you have to be very humble in front of this material. It's the glass that commands you" and not the other way around, he told ABC while cleaning up after a day's work in the furnace where he'd spent his day making intricate glass artworks.

Observing him blow, fold and cut red-hot glass extracted from the heart of the flames is nothing short of mesmerizing. Glass maestros -- or "glass masters" -- like Causin trained in the artisan craft still use nearly the same tools and techniques they did 1,000 years ago when the lagoon city became a glass-making hub.