The pendant laid out on a light background, with the silver chain rising above

Collection Fiorino·Pendente

Silver pendant with reproduced florin and twisted wire frame

Name: Silver pendant with reproduced florin and twisted wire frame
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: PA126
Price: 190.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

Twenty millimeters of reproduced florin, with the lily on one side and Saint John on the other.

€190,00 PA126

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

The florin is reproduced in silver, and on the face that turns outwards it carries the lily of Florence in relief, with the three points open and the two tendrils running down the sides; around it, broken by the flower, runs the word FLORENTIA. The ground of the coin is dark and the lily comes forward light. A plain, polished silver bezel goes round the coin at the edge and does not come over its face; beyond the bezel the edge of the pendant is not a sheet but a twisted silver wire, closed into a ring, with the turns all running at the same pitch, and between the wire and the bezel a dark groove is left. The bail is a twisted ring soldered at the top of the wire, and the chain passes through it. Turning the pendant over you see the other face of the coin: Saint John the Baptist standing, with his halo and his cross-staff, and around him the legend S·IOHANNES·B; on this side the coin is held by four silver tabs folded over the edge.

Seven grams eighty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths between the frame and the coin, and another four grams of chain, silver as well and included in the price. The pendant measures twenty-seven millimeters eighty across, the coin inside exactly twenty millimeters. The florin is a reproduction, and the company states as much: the real one is the gold coin Florence began to strike in 1252, with the city's lily on one face and Saint John the Baptist on the other. Here that drawing is remade in silver and oxidized so that the flower and the letters lift off the ground.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

7,80 gramsSilver 925‰ — frame and coin

4,00 gramsSilver chain

Metals: Silver 925‰
Finish: Twisted-wire frame · polished bezel · oxidized silver coin
Dimensions: Pendant diameter 27,80 mm · coin diameter 20,00 mm
Technique: Made entirely by hand in the company's studio: the florin reproduced in silver and oxidized, the plain bezel closed cold onto the edge, the twisted wire shaped and soldered into a ring around the frame, the four tabs folded over at the back. Silver chain included.

The pendant in three-quarter view: the twisted wire of the frame and the polished rim around the lily

The lily of Florence in relief and the word FLORENTIA on the dark ground of the coin

The back of the pendant: Saint John the Baptist standing and the four tabs that hold the coin

The whole necklace with the chain gathered and the lobster clasp

How it is made

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

Reproduced florin: The florin is not ancient: it is the reproduction of a Florentine florin, made in silver. The real florin 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 legends FLORENTIA and S·IOHANNES·B round the edges: that drawing is what is reproduced, and nothing else. What is reproduced is a low relief — a lily, a standing figure, a few letters round the edge — and in a low relief a tenth of a millimeter is the whole difference between a profile 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 edge, 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 the very relief it is being mounted for, and a flattened relief does not rise again.
Twisted-wire frame: The edge is not a sheet: it is a silver wire twisted on itself and then closed into a ring around the coin. The pitch of the twist has to stay the same all the way round, because the eye counts the turns as it counts the teeth of a gear and spots a longer one at once. And the point where the wire is soldered to itself has to be hidden inside a turn: if it is left showing it is a smooth stretch in the middle of a design that is not smooth.
Oxidizing: The silver is darkened on purpose, and then polished back only where the light has to return. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the light on the raised work: it is a drawing made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.

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