Mosaic art dates back to as early as 2500 BC, when glass was first used in mosaics. However, it was not until the 3rd century BC that artisans in Greece, Persia, and India created the first glass tiles. The development of glass tiles was hindered by the high temperatures required to melt glass and the complexities of annealing glass curves. Clay tiles were used much earlier, with examples dating back to 8,000 BC.

During the Byzantine era, Constantinople became the center of mosaic craft, and the use of gold leaf glass mosaic reached its greatest artistic expression in the Hagia Sophia. Traditional smalti tiles, also known as Byzantine glass mosaic tiles, are still used today by some artisans.
In the 1920s, mass production methods were applied to smalti tile manufacturing, making them more accessible to the middle class. Since the 1990s, a variety of modern glass tile technologies, including methods to create ‘green’ tiles from recycled glass, have led to a resurgence of interest in glass tile as a floor and wall cladding.