Italian glassmaker from a family which owned glassmaking shops in Venice as early as 1674. Pietro was one of the most accomplished glassmakers working in Venice in the 19th century. He made mirrors as well as lamps and window panes decorated with filigree and aventurine glass. Filigree is an opaque white or coloured glass which appears as swirling threads or spirals, and aventurine is a coloured glass which is made shiny with the addition of small flakes of gold or copper. They are both methods of glass ornamentation that died out, but were revived again by Bigaglia, and then later used in paperweight making. Bigaglia is known to have been one of the first Venetians to make paperweights. There are weights with his signature that are dated between 1845 and 1847. Bigaglia exhibited the first signed and dated millefiori paperweights at the Vienna Industrial Exposition in 1845. His work was shown again at the Murano Glass Museum in 1864 at the first big exhibit of Venetian and Muranese glassmakers. //