Asymmetric Rinascimento ring with cushion-cut amethyst, off-center gold bezel on filigree silver

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

01

Openwork

The metal is drilled and then cut out from the inside with a very fine saw, until the solid sheet becomes a design of voids. It is a process that allows no second attempt: what is taken away does not come back.

02

Burin engraving

The burin is a small goldsmith's chisel pushed by hand. It does not scratch: it lifts a shaving of metal and leaves a clean groove that catches the light. It is the mark that for five centuries has set the Florentine goldsmiths' school apart.

03

Off-center setting

A setting shifted to one side is not a centered setting badly placed: the seat has to be opened where the piercing is already cut, and the leaves that fall beneath it have to be cut short so that the gold rests on solid metal and not on a void. The weight of the stone then falls off the axis of the finger, and the band has to be left fuller under the loaded side: if it stays the same on both sides the ring turns by itself and the stone ends up askew.

04

Gold and silver on the same piece

Silver melts at a lower temperature than gold and oxidizes quickly under the flame. Mounting the two metals on the same piece means heating just enough for the solder to take without sinking the silver, and cleaning the joint before the black of the flame gets closed in under the gold.

05

Amethyst

Amethyst is purple quartz, and the purple does not come from a pigment: it comes from a few iron atoms that ended up in the lattice in place of silicon and were then struck by the natural radiation of the rock. That is why the color is almost never laid on evenly — it arranges itself in zones and bands, heavier on one side and paler on the other — and orienting the stone properly under the wheel is exactly what spreads it. It is as hard as citrine, the seventh degree, and can be worn every day without worrying about scratches; but that purple is the most delicate thing it has. Strong continuous light fades it, and heat erases it altogether: an amethyst heated enough turns yellow, and that is how much of the citrine on the market is born. Purple once lost does not come back.