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Vicenza, February 2026. Step inside the rooms of the Basilica Palladiana and the intention is immediately clear: this is not the familiar linear chronological sequence of precious objects found in most jewellery history museums. Paola Venturelli, an art historian with decades of research focused on Italian goldsmithing, collecting and the applied arts, has created a carefully structured narrative across six rooms and eleven thematic sections.
The chronological thread from the 5th century BC to the 21st century is present, yet it is constantly bent around materials, techniques and territorial contexts. The result is a reasoned interpretation of the Italian goldsmithing tradition — a living heritage of know-how that invites active reflection on how this language took shape and where it is heading.
Scheduled to run until the end of 2027, the exhibition is the museum’s new biennial project. For years the Museo del Gioiello has chosen this model of rotating displays to keep its dialogue with the territory and the jewellery industry alive and relevant. Venturelli has assembled more than 150 works from thirteen Italian museums and foundations. Her vision is stated clearly:
«We want to communicate that jewellery is far more than an ornament: it is memory, narrative and a bridge between past, present and future».
This curatorial approach highlights the composite nature of Italian jewellery. Until 1861 the peninsula produced jewels through autonomous centres — Taranto, Vicenza, Rome, Venice, Naples, Torre del Greco — that only converged into a shared national identity with Unification. The exhibition shows how each technique generates its own distinct aesthetic that travels across centuries and continues to shape contemporary practice.
Gold
The gold section opens the narrative. Incorruptible and ductile, gold links pre-Roman civilisations to Magna Graecia. Taranto, traditionally founded in 706 BC, emerges as one of the great southern workshops. Etruscan granulation reaches extraordinary levels of precision and lightness: tiny gold spheres soldered to create surfaces that capture light in a unique way. Alongside them appear chased grains and the finest gold wires formed into leaves and gathered into crowns of remarkable delicacy. The exhibition places ancient pieces next to contemporary reinterpretations made with the same techniques. The ancient virtuosity astonishes, yet here it sheds the cliché of mere archaeological quotation and reveals itself as an optical solution that remains perfectly relevant today — one capable of opening a dialogue between approaches separated by time. In this way Venturelli builds a reasoned discourse rather than a catalogue list.
coral and cameos
Coral ideally unites Italy from north to south. Fishing and working centres spread across Liguria, Sicily, Campania, Tuscany and Sardinia. From the 19th century Torre del Greco transformed raw harvesting into international-level manufacture. The room traces the stylistic evolution: from the “archaeological style” with Venuses and small amphorae to the romantic taste for leaves and flowers, through Déco revivals to contemporary experiments. Concrete examples include Giuseppe Ascione’s “Stile Etrusco” necklace (1906), Giovanni Ascione’s brooch (1963), Fope’s “Collezione Diva” bracelet (1980) and Annamaria Zanella’s “Fuoco-Lava” brooch (2011). Here coral appears as living material, able to change register while retaining its Mediterranean identity.
Cameos demonstrate the refined art of carving semi-precious stones and shells. Rome became the driving force in the 19th century thanks to the Castellani, who promoted their reuse in jewellery. Shell worked in Torre del Greco democratised the technique. The section also explores experiments with Campanian lava stone, used both in ornamental pieces and mourning jewellery, taking advantage of its natural colour variations.
Vicenza goldsmith art
The Vicenza room closes the historical and territorial circle. Paleovenetian roots (8th century BC) and the Lombard flowering (568-774) are documented by finds such as the 7th-century ring with vitreous paste. Under Venetian rule (1404-1797) goldsmithing expanded. The 19th century marked the turning point toward small family businesses that evolved into global brands. The exhibition presents the ex-voto collar with the Caldogno coat of arms (late 16th–early 17th century), stamped-element bracelets from the 1970s and recent pieces such as Roberto Coin’s “Princess Flower” earrings (2024). The chain motif remains constant — a sign of the delicate balance between workshop, industry and authorial research.
Glass and micro mosaic
Glass, micromosaic and hardstones form a chapter of extreme technical ingenuity. Micromosaic emerged in Rome at the end of the 18th century: tesserae smaller than a millimetre recompose ruins, squares and monuments. Powerful examples are the 1860s bracelets and brooches depicting the Colosseum, Roman Forum, St Peter’s Square, Temple of Vesta and Pantheon — precious Grand Tour souvenirs. These artefacts capture the eternal sites of the Eternal City precisely in the era when, from 1854 onward, the first gas lanterns began illuminating squares and ruins, offering nocturnal travellers a romantic, almost theatrical vision of the monuments. Murano developed murrine for miniaturised portraits. The room includes Giacomo Franchini’s murrine necklace (1860-63) portraying Cavour, Garibaldi, Napoleon III and Vittorio Emanuele II, Franz Pelzel’s rock-crystal pendant with Minerva (1928-34) and contemporary works such as Alberto Biasi’s “Sassi Appesi” necklace (1999) and Barbara Uderzo’s “Blob ring Mare Nostrum” (2006). These contemporary pieces demonstrate how the millimetre-precision of micromosaic and the transparent magic of Murano glass now evolve toward abstract, kinetic or organic forms: no longer faithful reproductions of historical views, but tools for exploring light, movement and nature in a contemporary key, while keeping the deep dialogue with artisanal tradition intact. Hardstones — lapis lazuli, jaspers, rock crystal — add density and light.
pearls and art
The pearls and gems section spans Liberty, Déco, the “bijoux blancs” of the 1920s-30s in platinum and diamond pavé, through post-war chromatic explosions to the kinetic vibrations of the 1960s. Space is also given to Buccellati’s world-renowned pizzo-tulle workmanship. The three paintings and two Apulian red-figure vases (330-310 BC) show that the ultimate purpose of goldsmithing has always been the ornament worn on the skin, read on the body, part of the wearer’s own story.
The final sections — Jewellery as Art, Icons, Making. Idea Project Work, Containers-Jewels — bring the discourse into the present, showing prototypes, sketches and authorial pieces that dialogue directly with tradition.
The itinerary creates an experience that invites return visits: after the first encounter one comes back to verify a connection, to compare a technique with one’s own current work, to notice details missed the first time. This approach demands attention and a degree of familiarity with the subject. The casual visitor may find a classic didactic timeline more immediately accessible. Yet the curatorial density turns the visit into an active tool of understanding. One leaves with concrete questions about one’s own practice, about the continuity of technical solutions, about the possibility of innovating while remaining rooted. And there is every reason to return, because each passage reveals new connections.
Until the end of 2027 the Museo del Gioiello in Vicenza offers goldsmiths, designers, collectors and scholars a living laboratory of knowledge. A place where the Italian jewellery tradition is read through the profound logic that binds material, technique and culture. A rare opportunity to verify, compare and draw direct inspiration from more than two millennia of goldsmithing expertise accumulated on the peninsula.
