Jewelry through the ages

Jewelry is as old as superstition, prejudice, and social rank. Worn as often by men as by women for thousands of years, jewels, until the French Revolution, were forbidden as the pure ornaments we know them today. They were amulets, talisman, indications of status, or had commemorative value, and were tightly linked to caste, intrinsic significance, joy, sorrow, pride, fear, or submission. The great Italian publishing house of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, in conjunction with Guido Gregorietti, Director of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan for 30 years, have put all the author's love for, and knowledge of, a so-called minor art into this 328-page book, with 400 illustrations, more than half of them in full color. The book explores the recorded history of jewelry which goes back 40,000 years to cave and rock paintings which show paleolithic man wearing ornaments of mammoth tusk, reindeer horn, amber and lignite; it delves into the artistic sense of jewelers as well as into their extraordinary technical development via experiment; describes the reverence for color, surface and sheen which contributed as much to the finished product as did workmanship. Follow a scholarly and fascinating pilgrimage through personal ornament from pre-history to modern wonders in a book frankly calculated to seduce lovers of beauty. The author, born in Palermo, completed his studies in Rome at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he concentrated on painting. He collaborated on the reconstruction of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli which had been damaged during WWII and was then named Director. The museum is very unique. In 1850 Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli began the decoration of his apartment within the family palace. The result was a series of rooms inspired to various artistic styles of the past (Baroque, Medieval period, Early Renaissance, Rococo), designed and decorated by some of the most innovative artists of the time including jewelry.