P

reface

Sicis’ unending search for new experiences

and passion for mosaics and the versatility of

this art form have inspired the company to

study the history of micromosaics and how

they have been applied to the goldsmith’s art

throughout history. This is the inspiration

behind the Sicis Jewels project, involving 3

years of historical and bibliographic research

leading to establishment of a workshop for

the study and application of micromosaic

techniques, refining and transforming the

techniques Sicis has used since it was first

established in Ravenna in 1987.

New developments in micromosaic tech-

niques are not the only concern of the Sicis

Jewels workshop, where jewellery-making

starts with the melting of different base

colours in glass and gold drawn by hand,

only millimetres thick, and continues with

setting of microscopic tesserae into forms

made of gold and precious stones prepared

by the master goldsmiths of Valenza and

Florence. Sicis has found versatile and orig-

inal ways of using mosaics now including

micromosaic jewellery as well as the art of

mosaics in architecture which has charac-

terised Sicis’ expression of its creativity ever

since the company was established.

Sicis’ founder Maurizio Leo Placuzzi was

inspired to involve one of the world’s best-

known interior designers in the Jewels proj-

ect: Roger Thomas, with whom Sicis has

collaborated on unique architectural proj-

ects such as the Wynn and the Bellagio in

Las Vegas.

Thomas has risen to the challenge by de-

signing his first collection of micromosaic

jewellery for Sicis Jewels with a rare em-

phasis on the geometry and perspective of

his designs.

The intrinsic versatility of the use of mosa-

ics in jewellery in the form of micromosaics

reveals how Sicis’s new interpretation of an-

cient micromosaic jewellery-making tech-

niques used in the 17th and 18th centuries

is given numerous different forms, offering

truly innovative and expressive techniques

such as Thomas’s.

Micromosaic used in this way becomes a

very valuable material, on a par with pre-

cious stones, gold and pearls; microscopic

tesserae are painstakingly set in infinite co-

lours to add unique, exclusive personality

and vitality to a modern version of a pre-

cious item of ancient origin.

S

cope of the collection

The historic content of the research behind

Sicis Jewels forms the basis for this volume’s

presentation of the company’s collections,

comparing the historic origins of Roman

micromosaic jewellery with the new inter-

pretations by Sicis Jewels’s mosaicists work-

ing with the best goldsmiths of Valenza and

Florence.

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