Finely wrought jewelry in gold and silver, often decorated with amber and hand made by skilled artisans: reproductions of Etruscan jewelry from the most ancient period, that of the Villanovan civilization.

The point of departure is the design which is born of the careful observation of the original pieces, with a precision and an attention to detail which makes it possible to reproduce weight and dimensions exactly. These pieces of gold and silver jewelry, often decorated with amber from the Baltic sea, as they were in ancient times, are created using the lost wax casting technique.

A model of the piece of jewelry is created, with the greatest possible precision, required for such elaborate designs.
When the wax model is finished, a plaster mold is created.
When the mold has hardened, it is placed in an oven at 800 degrees centigrade, where the wax evaporates, and the imprint into which the liquid metal is poured is left. The work necessary to create a prototype takes several days, depending on the complexity of the model.

The idea of creating accurate reproductions of jewelry in gold, silver and amber found in the tombs of the Etruscan princes in Verucchio, is that of a jeweler, Emilio Semprini, born in Verucchio, and impassioned of his art.

"I have always loved this work", he says, "I like to find new ideas, leave room for creativity. Twenty years ago I opened a laboratory for fine gold jewelry along with other goldsmiths. When, a few years ago splendid Villanovan jewelry was found here in Verucchio, I wanted to try to reproduce them. Our laboratory went to work and the result has been one of great satisfaction. My wife and I then decided to open a small store, that we called L'OROORIGINE, in the towns main square; people who appreciate quality, and are in search of exclusive and original reproductions of Etruscan gold jewelry come from all around to visit us".

Maybe it's their enigmatic faces that look at us from portraits in their tombs or from vases, or the cyclopic mass of the walls that still seem to hold some mystery; or the legend of their origins and the enigma, long held to be without a solution; of their language. Maybe for these reasons, between all of the peoples that left a testimony of their passage through history, the Etruscans enjoy a very particular place in the collective imagination. Such a fascination isn't the consequence of a passing fashion, due to some current event in the news, or a movie; for centuries people from all walks of life have fallen prey to the seduction of this lost culture. If we ask why, the answer does not seem to be simple; in reality, the Etruscans aren't in a Guinness book of world records for 'the greatest', 'the tallest', 'the oldest', 'the most precious' and so on.
Maybe the secret is in this absence of singularity, or of a special reason behind their attractiveness. That which makes the call of the Etruscans so attractive is the sense of happy and subtle balance in all things: they were splendid because they could compose a bright picture by mixing the light and shadow of their existence.

That which they have left us speaks of a society where sobriety and excess, cruelty and kindness, happiness and terror mixed and compensated one another. They didn't found an empire, they didn't impose their dominion on vast territories, nor for very long, perhaps because the splendid measure of their art of living didn't need to be gigantic, and would not have tolerated exponential growth.
And when the miraculous balance was broken they were unable to adapt, to find a way to survive. They disappeared as a people, without becoming martyrs of a desperate resistance, and without attempting an epic escape. They dispersed, without going anywhere; their cycle was over. The memory of their splendor is held in trust by that which with patient work has been discovered and that which awaits to reveal itself in the future.

If we take a rapid glance at the world in the centuries in which the Etruscan civilization was developing, we can see the pyramids, already more than a thousand years old, while in China, the construction of the Great Wall will begin only at the end of the Etruscan epoch.
In Mexico the Olmecs have already sculpted their giant stone heads, and Greece, adversary of the Etruscans on the sea and in commerce lives it’s golden age. While the Etruscans know their greatest splendor, in China and India, Confucius and Buddha are born.

The history of the Etruscans, the way their culture affirmed itself, their political, economic, and artistic development, and finally their decline, can be situated in Europe’s Iron Age, between the IX and the III century BC. The Etruscan civilization developed principally in today’s Tuscany and in northern Lazio; during it’s period of greatest power, it’s influence extended to the North, to part of the Padana plains, and South to Campania.

Even Rome, which would soon become the protagonist of the history of the Mediterranean Basin for many centuries, had to submit, for a certain amount of time to Etruscan domination. The origin of the Etruscans is still not completely clear.

According to the Greek historian, Herodotus, the Etruscans came to Italy from Asia Minor, according to others, they came from central Europe; but modern studies have shown that the Etruscan nation was formed through the gradual and reciprocal assimilation of the people living between the Arno and Tiber rivers, layering itself atop the preexisting 'Villanovan culture'.

The Etruscans were a great naval power, and they had traded with all of the cultures present in the Mediterranean basin. They assimilated, therefore, in the elaboration of their civilization, elements from different cultures: Italian, oriental (Syrian and Egyptian), and Greek.
The presence of the Etruscans in the Po river valley, and also in Romagna dates to the beginning of IX BC.

Verucchio, at 15 kilometers from Rimini, is one of the two centers of Villanovan culture in Italy. Numerous artifacts from that era are conserved today in both Verucchio’s museum as well as the museum of Bologna.