A jewel from Renaissance: the Tiara of Botticelli's Fortitude

A jewel from Renaissance: the Tiara of Botticelli's Fortitude

Some months ago the Terziere Borgo Dentro asked us to reproduce a special piece of jewelry painted by Sandro Botticelli in 1470, the tiara of his beautiful Fortitude - La Fortezza. An early painting, now at the Uffizi in Florence. It has been a real challenge to transform an ideal representation of such a genius of the Renaissance picture in a real jewel.
Trying to understand the volumes and the shape we found ourselves analyzing every detail and suddenly realizing that our thoughts were duly following the same steps Botticelli trod to create the tiara. More than five hundred years later, thanks to #borgodentro this commission gave us the touching opportunity to understand and feel the thoughts and the work of such a distant, great, human being. Another gratifying part of the experience have been to practically verify - once again - how little some things have changed through the centuries. We have been able to make the tiara - hopefully faithful enough to Botticelli's painting - because artisans and artists still use almost the same tools Florentine goldsmiths used in 1400. Happy of having learnt and inherited such a special knowledge.
Working on the wings of the tiara, repouse and chase. The silver plate - with the drawing of one wing - is fixed on the pitch.
Soldering one of the wings
Polishing
The Tiara
October 2017
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