Lorenzo Rosso is fatally injured when a glass shard cuts his throat in the workshop, leaving young Marco as the new family head.

Maria Barovier advises Orsola to learn bead making, noting that women can practice this craft without threatening the male glassmakers.

Marco offers Antonio, a fisherman's son from Venice, a rare apprenticeship in the Rosso glassmaking workshop.

Klingenberg agrees to buy Orsola's beads secretly, paying her separately from the family's workshop accounts.

Plague strikes Venice and Laura insists on accompanying the sick, pregnant Nicoletta to the quarantine island to protect her and the unborn baby.

The Rosso home is sealed for forty days of quarantine, and Orsola's secret bead income becomes the family's financial lifeline.

Quarantine ends and Laura returns with a newborn infant, reporting that Nicoletta died in childbirth on the isolation island.

Marco hires Stefano from the Barovier workshop rather than promoting Antonio, devastating the apprentice and straining relations in the workshop.

Orsola and Antonio reach an impasse — he wants her to leave Venice with him, she refuses, and the two part ways forever.

Domenego delivers a small glass dolphin to Orsola, revealing that Antonio is secretly sending her tokens of love from the mainland.

Napoleon's forces occupy Venice, bringing poverty and instability to the city and threatening the livelihoods of families like the Rossos.

Klingenberg announces he is leaving Venice and returning to Germany, destroying the Rosso workshop's primary source of revenue.

The Rosso family hires Luciana to teach them seed bead production, pivoting from artisanal glasswork to more industrial methods to survive.

Raffaele moves to Venice to live with Luciana and work on the railway bridge, which the Rosso family views as a betrayal of Murano.

Stefano dies from COVID-19, and a man named Alessandro Scaramal soon arrives claiming to be a descendant of Antonio.

Orsola Rosso grows up in the glassmaking world of 15th-century Murano, and when her father dies unexpectedly, the family workshop faces an uncertain future. She secretly learns to make glass beads and sells them to the German merchant Klingenberg, earning a financial independence rare for women of her era. Her love for Antonio, a fisherman's son turned apprentice, is cut short when her brother's business decisions drive him to flee Venice illegally, leaving Orsola to marry another man out of family duty. Over the following centuries, Venice's political collapse under Napoleon and Klingenberg's departure force the family to abandon traditional glassmaking in favor of industrial seed bead production. The younger generations begin leaving Murano to pursue their own lives, and the family's long traditions slowly erode. In the modern era, Orsola loses her husband to COVID-19 and is finally visited by a descendant of Antonio, bringing resolution to the love she carried for centuries.

The headline events that shaped Orsola's life and the fate of Venice.

Nine-year-old Orsola falls into a canal and wanders alone into the Barovier workshop, where she witnesses Maria making glass beads.

Laura gives birth to a daughter named Stella, and Marco marries a woman named Nicoletta shortly after Lorenzo's death.

Orsola delivers her first solo bead order to Klingenberg's home in Venice, navigating the unfamiliar city entirely alone.

Domenego explains to Orsola that he was forcibly taken from Africa and enslaved by the Klingenberg family.

Orsola and Antonio discuss the allure of the mainland, and she cautions him that glassmakers who escape face pursuit, imprisonment, or death.

Monica is hired as wet nurse for infant Raffaele, quickly marries Marco, and arranges for her cousin Isabella to wed Giacomo.

Orsola and Antonio begin a secret sexual relationship, and she becomes pregnant but loses the pregnancy.

Marco announces that Orsola will marry Stefano, declaring the union will cement the new glassmaker's loyalty to the family.

Venetian officials search for Antonio after his escape, and Domenego is tortured on suspicion of knowing his whereabouts.

Casanova visits the Rosso workshop, orders an elaborate chandelier and glass items, but is later arrested without ever paying.

Klingenberg reveals to Orsola that her glass beads travel through trade networks that also deal in enslaved people.

Orsola races to complete a glass bead necklace for Empress Josephine, but the empress pays little attention when the gift is presented.

Sebastiano, Giacomo's only son, volunteers to serve as the family's soldier in World War I and is killed in action.

A severe storm and high tide cause catastrophic flooding that damages both Orsola's Venice shop and the Rosso family workshop.

Domenego tells Orsola he has sold his gondola and intends to return to his homeland of Ghana, ending his centuries in Venice.

The secondary events of Orsola's story reveal the rich fabric of daily life and relationships behind the main narrative arc. From her childhood discovery of a woman secretly practicing the male trade of glassmaking, to her deepening awareness of the moral compromises embedded in trade and enslavement, Orsola's world is shaped by extraordinary encounters. Her relationship with Antonio unfolds in secret pleasure and painful loss, while her family is tested by plague, war, and financial exploitation — most dramatically when the charming Casanova leaves them unpaid for a costly commission. Across the centuries, the world beyond Murano grows more visible and threatening, from the slave trade networks Klingenberg describes to the catastrophic flooding that damages Orsola's own shop. The departure of beloved figures like Domenego and the death of young Sebastiano mark each era's human cost. Through it all, Orsola's bonds of friendship and her capacity for witness leave an enduring mark on who she becomes.

The supporting relationships, crises, and encounters that shaped Orsola's world.

Elena Barovier begins teaching Orsola the art of glass bead making, starting her on a craft path traditionally closed to women.

Marco presents Klingenberg with an impractical ornate goblet that barely holds liquid, and the merchant bluntly rejects it and demands a redesign.

Klingenberg visits the Rosso workshop, praises Antonio's emerging talent, and places a formal standing order for Orsola's beads.

The Rosso family is sealed inside their home for a forty-day quarantine while Laura and Nicoletta remain on the isolation island.

Orsola's grandmother dies during the quarantine period, though her aunt and the two young children staying elsewhere remain healthy.

Monica immediately asks Orsola to teach her daughter Rosella bead making, saying she wants her daughter to have the same independence.

Klara Klingenberg deduces that Antonio and Orsola were secret lovers and pledges to discreetly deliver any future parcels he sends.

Orsola accepts Stefano as her husband roughly a year after Antonio's departure, setting aside her grief to serve the needs of her family.

Orsola hires Domenego to take her to the mainland to finally see the wider world, but she quickly returns home, preferring Venice.

Monica proposes that part of the Rosso workshop be formally allocated to Orsola's bead making, recognizing its growing value to the family.

Laura declares the family must abandon glassmaking entirely to survive, but Orsola instead persuades them to shift to seed bead production.

Laura dies shortly after Sebastiano is killed in the war, and Luciana begins asserting authority as the new Rosso family matriarch.

Stella decides to leave Murano and work as a warfront nurse, choosing personal freedom over her life of domestic obligation.

Klara Klingenberg offers to invest her own savings in Orsola's proposed shop near Piazza San Marco, forming an unexpected business partnership.

Alessandro reveals that women in Antonio's family line have carried the name Orsola for generations as a tribute to his ancestor's lost love.

This pool follows the pivotal moments of discovery and decision that quietly transformed Orsola's life without always announcing themselves as turning points. From her first lesson in bead making to the formal recognition of her craft within the Rosso workshop, Orsola gradually carved out an identity as an artisan in a world that rarely acknowledged women in that role. The choices she made about love — accepting Stefano, letting Antonio go, keeping his dolphins close — shaped her interior life for centuries. As the Rosso family faced collapse and reinvention, Orsola was repeatedly the one to find a path forward, whether persuading the family to pivot to seed beads or partnering with Klara to open a Venetian shop. The final revelation, that Antonio honored their love by naming his female descendants after her, brings Orsola's centuries of quiet resilience full circle.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that defined Orsola's journey.