The pair resting against light wood: the two silver florins with the lily facing out and below each the white pearl

Collection Fiorino·Orecchini

Silver earrings with reproduced florin and round freshwater pearl

Name: Silver earrings with reproduced florin and round freshwater pearl
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: OA139
Price: 150.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

Twenty millimeters of reproduced fiorino per earring, pierced top and bottom, and below it a freshwater pearl flat as a disc.

€150,00 OA139

Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.

Each earring is made of two discs hanging one below the other. At the top is the fiorino, reproduced in silver: on the face that turns outward it carries the lily of Florence in relief, with the three points open and the two scrolls running down the sides, and around it runs the word FLORENTIA, broken by a small cross. The ground of the coin is dark and the lily comes forward pale. The disc is not an exact circle: the rim waves and in places draws back. There is no frame around the coin: it is pierced top and bottom, and through the two holes pass two silver rings — the upper one links it to the hook, the lower one holds the pearl. The freshwater pearl is white, round in outline but flat, little more than a disc, threaded on a post closed below with a small bead; across the surface run the concentric circles of the mother-of-pearl, and the two do not have them alike. Turning the earring over the other face of the fiorino appears: Saint John the Baptist standing, with his halo and cross-staff, and around him the words S·IOHANNES·B. The hook is a lever back, with its spring coiled into a spiral beneath the curve.

Seven grams and ninety of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths. The fiorino measures twenty millimeters and five hundredths across, the pearl a little over fifteen, and from the top of the hook to the bottom of the pearl the earring comes to fifty-seven millimeters and fifty-five. The fiorino is not an antique coin: it is a reproduction, made in silver in the company's studio. The real one is the gold coin Florence began striking in 1252, with the city's lily on one face and Saint John the Baptist on the other; here that design has been remade in silver and oxidized so that the flower and the letters lift off the ground. On its website the company calls it «Moneta Fiorino» and writes that the piece is made in its own studio, without using the word reproduction: we use it, because that is what it is. On the size of the pearl the site contradicts itself — fifteen and seventeen in one place, seventeen and fifteen in another — and the photographs bear out the first of the two. Whether the pearls are cultured or natural is written nowhere, and we do not write it in their place. One thing holds for all of them: they are calcium carbonate held together by an organic substance, they sit around the third degree of hardness and they dissolve in acids, so they go on after the perfume and come off first.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

7,90 gramsSilver 925‰

Metals: Silver 925‰
Finish: Oxidized coin with the relief re-polished · polished rings, post and hook
Dimensions: Diameter of the fiorino 20,05 mm · diameter of the pearl 15,17 mm · total length of the earring 57,55 mm
Technique: Made entirely by hand in the company's studio: the fiorino reproduced in silver, oxidized and then re-polished on the relief, pierced top and bottom; the two rings closed into the holes, the pearl threaded onto the post and held below with a small bead, the lever back with its spring coiled into a spiral.

The stones

Freshwater pearl

One per earring, hanging below the coin

Cut: Uncut
Note: Round in outline and flat, diameter 15,17 mm; the company does not declare whether they are cultured or natural, and the carat weight has not been declared

The earrings resting on a light stone, seen from the front, with the two coins side by side

The two coins in three-quarter view, with the word FLORENTIA running along the edge

View from above: the wavy edge of the coin disc and the small rings passing through the two holes

The two flat pearls seen from the front, with the circles of mother-of-pearl on the surface

Close-up of the lily of Florence: the three open points, the side curls and the darkened ground

The pair at an angle: the thin gauge of the coin and that of the pearl

The reverse of the florin: Saint John the Baptist standing with the halo and the cross staff

The reverse in the foreground and, next to it, a pearl seen edge-on that shows how flat it is

The earrings hanging from a branch: the two pearls compared, each with its own reflection

The ear wire with its coiled spring, and below it the coin pierced at the top

Tilted on the wood, with the two pearls in the foreground and the florins behind

How it is made

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

Reproduced fiorino: The fiorino is not antique: it is a reproduction of a Florentine fiorino, made in silver. The real fiorino is the gold coin Florence struck from 1252, with the city's lily on one face and Saint John the Baptist on the other, and the words FLORENTIA and S·IOHANNES·B along the rims: that design is what is reproduced, and nothing else. What is reproduced is a low relief — a lily, a standing figure, a few letters along the rim — and in a low relief a tenth of a millimeter is the whole difference between an outline that reads and a smudge. The blank that comes out is not a flat disc: it is higher at the center than at the edge, and the edge itself is not an exact circle. That is what decides the mount. The frame closes on the rim, where the metal is steadier and where there is no design to cover, and it is tightened cold — a flame passed over the field of the coin would flatten exactly the relief it is being mounted for, and a flattened relief does not rise again.
Oxidizing: The silver is darkened deliberately, and then re-polished only where the light has to come back. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the pale on the raised work: it is a design made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
Pearl: The pearl is the only gem produced by a living animal, and it is not a mineral like the others: it is aragonite — calcium carbonate — held together by conchiolin, an organic substance the mollusc lays down between one layer and the next. That organic part is its weak point. On the hardness scale the pearl sits around three: it scratches with a fingernail, and the metal of another piece of jewelry marks it at the first contact. But the scratch is not the worst damage: being a carbonate it dissolves in acids, and sweat, perfume, hairspray and vinegar corrode the surface until the luster goes out. It goes on last, after the perfume, and comes off first; it is cleaned with a barely damp cloth and put away dry, never shut in a bag where no air passes. And you watch the thread or the cord that holds it too: it is the part that ages first, and it should be replaced before it gives, not after.
Lever back clasp: The hook passes behind the lobe and closes on itself. It goes on with one movement, has no screws to lose and carries the weight without pulling.

I don't look at what others are doing: I would rather create in my own style. That is what makes our jewelry recognizable.
Fabio Gori — Anna Gioielli, Tosi

Made for you

Every piece leaves the bench made to order: sizes and details are agreed before the work begins.

The goldsmith's workshop is also the place where made-to-measure jewellery is created and family pieces are restored: if you have an idea, or something you want brought back to how it was, that is where it starts.

Ask for a made-to-measure piece

Made by

Anna Gioielli

A goldsmith's workshop in Tosi, on the slopes of the Pratomagno: Anna opened it in 1988, her sons Fabio and Francesco carry it on. Piercing, repoussé, chasing and burin engraving — the Florentine school, with the workshop in full view of the shop.

All the creations by Anna Gioielli