Ennia Fortuna: a Roman Glass Maker from Rome?

Abstract

The collection of classical antiquities at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin has held, since the early 19th cent., a base fragment of a Roman glass vessel with a mark of Ennia Fortuna. It was incorrectly taken to be the base of a so-called Mercury flask. The fragment does however come from a free-blown flask and was carried to Berlin from Rome along with other pieces from the Bartholdy Collection. The classification opens up new geographical and chronological perspectives. Free-blown flasks with base marks are relatively common in Italy; the piece with the Ennia Fortuna mark itself comes presumably from Italy, perhaps from Rome and its environs, and the name is also fairly well represented in inscriptions there. It can therefore be proposed that the workshop of Ennia Fortuna was located in Rome. In spite of the similarity in names, a connection with the glass maker Ennion, known from many signed vessels, cannot be established and is in fact unlikely.