Jewelers Of Italy

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

As Rome grew in military power her ‘illustrious expeditions’ penetrated farther and farther into other countries, converting them into Roman provinces under Roman control; and as plunder from foreign lands piled high, her ruling classes grew fabulously rich. In the new provinces Roman governors performed their duties with utmost thoroughness, leaving no plum unsqueezed. One Italian governor in Spain, however, sought to maintain a reputation for taking nothing from the public treasury. Cicero tells the following story concerning this governor:

He was going through the military exercises when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cardova, in front of his own judgment seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench on the forum and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, not even half an ounce, but had merely given his old broken ring to be worked anew.

A ring that could be crushed on a man’s finger without involving also the crushing of the finger is accounted for by the type of rings popular in that day. They were large and impressive, but by no means as heavy as they appeared because, like the rings long since known to the Greeks, they were hollow. It was amazing how the goldsmith, by dint of much hammering and some welding together of thin plates could turn a very little ingot of gold into a big and important-looking ring. Of course the hollow ring of soft metal was easily crushed.

During the later days of the republic the gorgeous gems of the Orient were fairly pouring into Rome. There were iridescent opals, moonstones, tawny yellow topazes, sky-blue sapphires, olive-green peridots, the latter brought from an island in the Red Sea. Also from the warm waters of the Red Sea came lustrous pearls. Their round or pear-shaped form made them most desirable as pendants, and these pendant pearls were often of such price that a lady might dangle a fortune from each ear. Emeralds, the most prized of all stones, came from the famous mines of Cleopatra in upper Egypt; and lapis lazuli traveled by caravan from Afghanistan.

By this time gemstones were moving outside their original sphere as charms or articles of personal adornment and becoming items of collections. It is said that Scaurus, son-in-law of Sulla, was the first Roman to become a collector of gems. Once the pace was set, other wealthy men rushed headlong in pursuit of the fascinating new hobby.

Little garnets, aquamarines, topazes and peridots, all exquisitely engraved, would be sufficiently prized by the avid collector to wring from him enormous sums of money. And even, on occasion, something more precious than money.

The story is told of a senator, Nonius by name, who possessed an opal set in a ring. The opal was the size of hazel-nut, and of such surpassing beauty that at sight of it Mark Antony was overwhelmed by so inordinate a desire to own it that no sense of justice could restrain him. His heart was set—the story goes—on giving that gem to Cleopatra. He decreed that Nonius must either hand it over to him, Mark Antony, or suffer banishment from Rome. Now to be exiled from his beloved city was a peculiarly bitter fate for any Roman, but it was a choice of Rome or the opal. Nonius was forced to choose between them and he did. The gem won. Nonius took his opal and left Roman forever.

Imperial Caesar himself was not immune to the prevailing craze for collecting gems. In fact, he outranked the other enthusiasts and founded no less than six different collections of rare gems, which were kept on display in the temple of Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s Forum.

Although a man might with dignity collect gems to his heart’s content it was by now considered effeminate for him to wear any ring except that which bore his signet. On days of mourning, even signet-rings of gold would be laid aside and an iron one substituted as an indication of grief. On the day of Caesar’s funeral the only rings in evidence were bands of dull iron, the Roman equivalent for a band of crêpe on a coat-sleeve.

Jewelers Of Italy (continued)