Originally published in Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry, edited by Susan Weber Soros and Stefanie Walker. Published for The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. 201–226.

From the exhibition: The Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry.

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With the opening of the Regolini-Galassi tomb in 1836 at Cerveteri (the ancient Caere), the Castellani firm took a decided turn toward the study of ancient gold jewelry. Fortunato Pio and Alessandro Castellani were invited by the papal authorities to inspect the stunningly ornate gold artifacts recovered from the tomb. Their firsthand acquaintance with the marvelous jewelry would be recalled again and again by Alessandro in his lectures and publications:

The discovery of the celebrated tomb known as that of Regulini Galassi, at Cervetri [sic], was an event of the highest importance in regard to our enterprise. On the Papal Government expressing a wish to become possessed of the objects in gold found in this tomb, my father and I were called upon to examine them with the utmost care. We had thus an opportunity of studying the particular character of Etruscan jewelry, and, holding thereby in our hands the thread which was to guide us through our researches, we set earnestly to work.1

Other discoveries were influential as well, at the site of Cerveteri by the Marchese Campana, at Toscanella by Secondiano Campanari, and at Vulci where in 1828 an Etruscan necropolis was uncovered on the estate of Lucien Bonaparte, the prince of Canino.2 Much of the jewelry recovered was made available to the Castellani firm for study, facilitating their research into ancient goldworking techniques.3

Pivotal to the new Castellani initiative was the well­-known antiquarian Michelangelo Caetani, duke of Sermoneta: “so well known as possessing the purest taste and the feelings of a true artist, he revived at Rome the art of the jeweler by taking as models the most perfect examples that antiquity could furnish.”4 Caetani encouraged the Castellani family to concentrate their production on ancient-style jewelry and provided them with appropriate designs and ideas.5

A second important figure was Giovanni Pietro Campana, family friend and director of the Sacro Monte di Pietà, whose famous collection of ancient jewelry was housed in his museum in Rome.6 The marchese di Campana had enriched his collection with finds from his own archaeological activities, as well as by purchases of the finest pieces unearthed by others.7 Unfortunately for Campana, his outsized passion for ancient jewelry led him to appropriate funds illegally to support his habit, and he was arrested and imprisoned in 1859. His collection was confiscated for sale, most of it bought by Napoleon III in 1860-61.The Castellani family worked to save the collection but to no avail. However, the firm did retain the Campana jewelry for a period prior to the sale—to repair, study, and make casts of the pieces.8

I had in my possession, for the space of six months, all the jewels of that precious collection; and this was for the purpose of repairing injuries received by them, from the neglect and want of care of those with whom they had been placed in the Sacro Monte di Pietà….I availed myself of the opportunity to restudy the ancient Art of jewelry in all its parts; to note the smallest difference in style, of time and of nation, and to see the use and the history of the ornaments thus produced, acquiring in this manner fresh knowledge, and improving that which I had treasured up, in the exercise of the art, for the space of nearly twenty years.9

“The ancient Art of jewelry”

Meanwhile, the Castellani family had begun to build its own impressive collection, which afforded further opportunity to investigate the early techniques. It became increasingly clear that the ancient goldsmiths were superior to those of the nineteenth century.

It appears that the Greeks and Etruscans had, so to speak, acquired a complete knowledge of all those practical arts in their highest degree of perfection, by the aid of which the most ancient people of the East wrought the precious metals. Once initiated into the modes of treating the raw material, and of subjecting it to all the caprices of their imagination, the artists of Etruria and of Greece had but to apply these processes to elegance and to the vast resources of the art, such as their own genius conceived.10

The ancient techniques so admired by the Castellani firm included repoussé, filigree, and “granulation,” which they mastered to a high degree and then used for their own copies and adaptations. The ancient art of granulation, particularly the fine “powder” granulation of the Etruscans, was especially difficult to reproduce and eluded the grasp of the Castellani jewelers for decades.

Notwithstanding the achievements of the machine age, the ancient goldwork was more refined than anything that could be manufactured in the nineteenth century:

Its very imperfections and omissions, purposely made, give to the workmanship that artistic character altogether wanting in the greater number of modern works, which, owing to a monotonous uniformity produced by punching and casting, have an appearance of triviality depriving them of all individual character—that charm which so constantly strikes us in the productions of the ancients.11

In the view of Alessandro Castellani, these imperfections only made the ancient work more perfect. Modern jewelers’ work was less artistic and more mechanical, with the various activities, such as casting, engraving, enameling, gem polishing, and the setting of stones, divided among various specialist workmen, the whole process overseen “by a dealer whose aim is to make a marketable article and dazzle vulgar eyes, not to produce a real work of art.”12

This complaint was echoed by contemporary aesthetes such as William Burges, who railed against the bad jewelry of his day, made possible by “the great system of our age,” the division of labor—poorly trained and uneducated designers, production jewelers working from stock designs of questionable taste, and tradesmen to display and sell the items. The revival of ancient jewelry styles and techniques was, in Burges’s opinion, “a step in the right direction.” And “even should the fashion go out, as all fashions do, still it will have introduced more delicacy into the manipulation, and the succeeding style will hardly be so bad as the one of which we have just got rid.”13 But the fashion would be in for a very long time­ and the fashion was “Italian archaeological jewelry.”14

“A perfect imitation of the ancient work”

Those who were lucky enough could wear real ancient jewelry, the princess of Canino for one, who presumably had her pick of the antiquities found on her husband’s estate at Vulci. She was known throughout Europe for her fabulous Etruscan “parure,” that was “the envy of society and excelled the chefs d’oeuvres of Paris or Vienna.”15 Such reports only increased the demand for the archaeological-style jewelry that was made and sold by the Castellani firm. So prestigious was the firm that people traveled long distances to see the Castellani shop in Rome. Nathaniel Hawthorne visited the shop at 88 Via Poli in 1858, and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1860.16 The pilgrimage was satirized in Punch in 1859 with a letter from a “Young Lady” who was planning her visit to Rome:

…there is a great deal to see in Rome that everybody must see, but then you know, dear, we read about all those things when we were at school, and we can buy plenty of photographs of the Coliseum, the Forum, and the Temples, &c., to show our friends in England where we have been, so that we need not waste much time upon them. My great object in Rome is to go, the very first thing, to that dear, delightful, interesting shop, CASTELLANI’S, in the Via Poli, where…you have nothing to do but to lay down scudi enough, in order to be made perfectly classical in appearance and style.17

The “perfectly classical” look was achieved through perfectly classical jewelry, made in studious imitation of ancient prototypes, and so well researched and finely crafted that one was hard pressed to distinguish between the copies and the ancient works. Experts might be able to tell the difference, but in the popular imagination, Castellani jewelry was as good as the real thing.18 Individual pieces were associated with particular styles and periods, with ancient peoples from particular areas, and even with specific archaeological sites.

The new jewelry which has appeared in Rome is a perfect imitation of the ancient work in gold and precious stones, disposed and arranged according to the different ages of ancient Art, so that from the style of each article, the period and people to which it belonged can be easily known, and we can at once name the ancient people who best cultivated the art of goldwork.19

In fact, none of the Castellani creations were exact replicas, although admirers were convinced that they could learn about ancient jewelry based on the productions of the firm.20 To this end, one could also view the Castellani collection of ancient jewelry exhibited at the shop, although these pieces had been “repaired” in many instances by the shop’s jewelers. Many of these “repaired” pieces were eventually acquired by the British Museum (notably in 1872 and 1884). Or one might visit the museums of Italy, such as the Campana Museum, where more ancient jewelry was on display. However, these pieces too might be repaired and subsequently sold—1,146 pieces from the Campana collection went to France (1861) and subsequently entered the Louvre (1863).21 As a result, several major European collections of ancient jewelry now contain numerous pieces that were repaired or reworked, many by the Castellani firm.

These items figured prominently in the history of ancient jewelry formulated in the nineteenth century—the basis for much of our knowledge of the field today. Only recently have scientists and archaeologists begun to identify the nineteenth-century additions to ancient pieces, many of which passed through the Castellani shop. Further compounding the problem, reworked ancient pieces were copied and disseminated by Castellani and other firms specializing in archaeological jewelry. Finally, proveniences were assigned to pieces that were purchased on the art market, and these proveniences were disseminated along with the styles and types of jewelry “said to be from” particular sites.22 All these problems have their origins in the antiquarian approach to early archaeological excavation.

Antiquarian Archaeology

The eighteenth-century excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum were, to a great extent, plundering operations to find and remove antiquities for the Bourbon court.23 There were some objections to this approach, most famously those of archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who complained that Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre, the director of excavations, was nothing more than a “land surveyor” who was “as familiar with antiquities as the moon is with crabs.”24 An exception to Alcubierre’s haphazard and damaging methods was found in the work of his assistant Karl Weber, who advocated systematic techniques such as following the lines of streets and entering the buildings through doors, as well as cataloguing artifacts according to their find spots.25 For the most part, however, no concept of archaeological methodology yet existed.

By the first half of the nineteenth century, the situation had improved somewhat, although the illusion of scientific excavation techniques often exceeded the reality. George Dennis, in The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1848), proposed that the extensive “rifling” of Etruscan tombs had taken place in a much earlier period, perhaps toward the end of the Roman Empire or “by the barbarian hordes who overran Italy in the early part of our era.” He claimed that in the Middle Ages there was an interest in buried treasure, but “it does not appear that any systematic researches were carried forward, as…in our own day.”26 Dennis’s brief account of the recent “excavations” at Vulci, however, paints a more disturbing picture of current practices:

In the early part of 1828 some oxen were ploughing the land near the castle, when the ground suddenly gave way beneath them, and disclosed an Etruscan tomb with two broken vases. This led to further research, which was at first carried on unknown to the Prince of Canino, but at the close of the year he took the excavations into his own hands, and in the course of four months he brought to light more than two thousand objects of Etruscan antiquity, and all from a plot of ground of three or four acres. Other excavators soon came into the field; everyone who had land in the neighbourhood tilled it for this novel harvest, and all with abundant success; the Feoli, Candelori, Campanari, Fossati,—all enriched themselves and the Museums of Europe with treasures from this sepulchral mine. Since that time the Prince or his widow has annually excavated on this site, and never in vain.27

The “research” carried out after the first tomb was discovered clearly involved digging up more of the site, and this seems to have gone on unsupervised for almost a year before the prince took over. Then, for his part, he speedily turned up two thousand items in a four-month period. Soon others joined in with the same gusto, with the result that all the “excavators” were “enriched,” but the objects had lost their archaeological context forever, making the provenience of “Vulci” suspect for all the early finds “said to come from” the area. Many of these objects were sold to museums and collectors.

Campana was one of the top buyers. An avid collector, he was a member of the Accademia Ercolanese and numerous other antiquarian societies, well placed within the antiquities trade, and an “excavator” at Cerveteri and at Veii, where he “discovered” the famous painted “Campana Tomb” in 1842-43, which is now recognized as a fabrication.28 This was unknown to Dennis in 1848, when he extolled Campana’s virtues as a scientist.29 Campana was also admired by his contemporaries for his concern over the archaeological context of the objects in his collection, although in fact most of these had no secure provenience. He attempted to assemble coherent groups of objects, but some of these groups were constructed from pieces that were not actually found together.30 He catalogued his antiquities for publication in the Cataloghi Campana, although he merely listed the objects with no indication of their find spots.31 It is in this atmosphere that the Castellani family operated.

Friends of Campana, the erudite Castellani were not only dealers but antiquarians as well. Scholars of antiquity, they read the works of Pliny and others in their search for information on ancient technology.32 Alessandro lectured widely on the firm’s research on ancient jewelry techniques to groups such as the Institute of France (1860) and the Archaeological Institute in London (1861).33 Both Alessandro and Augusto published numerous books and articles on ancient history and the history of early jewelry.34 There was even a “Castellani Tomb,” discovered at Palestrina (Praeneste) in 1861; the tomb was not excavated by the Castellani, but Fortunato Pio acquired the finds.35 The tomb was opened illegally, however, and the grave goods were subject to judicial inquiry.36 The objects were eventually divided among the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Alessandro (who sold his items to the British Museum), and Augusto (who retained a small collection, now in the Villa Giulia).

Alessandro frequented excavations, purchasing antiquities at various sites, and he personally took part in excavations at Santa Maria di Capua (Capua) and hoped to excavate near Naples during his exile there.37 In order to finance the Naples excavations, he attempted to sell one of the firm’s most valuable pieces, a reproduction of a gold diadem “found at Cumae”, as indicated in a letter of 1864 to Austen Henry Layard.38 The reward for undertaking such a project, with any luck, would be many more antiquities to add to the Castellani collection.

A more scientific project was initiated by Alessandro in 1870—the excavation of the Tiber riverbed, a rescue effort before the dredging of the river.39 The prospect of the outcome excited the public:

What mines of wealth may not be hidden there—wealth of material and of thought! A committee has been formed, at the head of which is Sigr. Castellani, which hopes to have the direction of this work….When one thinks of what may be hidden in the bed of that river….the most precious things thrown in hot haste from the bridges and walls, lest the invader might be enriched thereby; the images of the gods and the caskets of inestimable antique value;…the most torpid imagination must kindle with the thought of what a few years will add to the archaeological and artistic interest of the Eternal City.40

But this was more than a treasure hunt. The finds were recorded, plans were drawn of architectural remains, and photographs and drawings were made of the Roman wall paintings recovered. In his report on the excavations, Alessandro expressed a new approach to archaeological methodology:

… the observations made on the progressive elevation of the ground were sufficient to establish in my mind the firm belief that, by a careful and systematic exploration of the bed of the Tiber, we should find, layer upon layer, as in turning over the leaves of a book, a connected series of historical and artistic documents of inestimable value.41

This interest in stratigraphy places Alessandro Castellani among the most advanced archaeologists of his day, along with Karl Weber at Herculaneum; A. H. Layard, excavator of the Assyrian capital of Nimrud; and Heinrich Schliemann, discoverer of the Bronze Age cities of Troy and Mycenae.42 In keeping with the times, however, even such progressive figures committed improprieties and appropriated antiquities: Schliemann packed up “Priam’s Treasure” and smuggled it out of Turkey in 1873, and Layard gave Assyrian sculptures to his cousin Lady Charlotte Guest for her country house in England.43 In 1869, when Layard married his cousin’s daughter, Enid Guest, he presented her with a parure of archaeological jewelry made up of authentic Mesopotamian cylinder and stamp seals, including a bracelet set with “Esarhaddon’s signet” which Layard had found at Nimrud.44

Ancient Jewelry and Castellani Adaptations

Any study of Castellani adaptations must take into account the world of the antiquarian archaeologist.46 Puzzling practices and questions of intent are better understood within this context. A good way to begin such a study is with the excavated objects known to the Castellani. The term excavated is used here for objects that were systematically removed from known sites, in authorized ventures, and kept in their original groups; in the best of cases, the objects were removed with care, and the circumstances of their excavation were recorded.46

The most fabulous excavated Etruscan jewels came from three tombs dating to the seventh century B.C.—the Barberini tomb (1855) and the Bernardini tomb (1876), both discovered at Palestrina, and the Regolini-Galassi tomb (1836) at Cerveteri, a seminal influence.47 None of these finds was adequately recorded, although they had a relatively secure context and were clearly authentic.48 They were thus of interest to the Castellani firm, but only, it seems, in terms of technical research; despite their significance, they were apparently not used as prototypes for Castellani productions. The information the Castellani gathered from these pieces was used for their archaeological jewelry.

Another important group of excavated jewels did serve as models for Castellani adaptations, although this jewelry was available to the workshop only through published engravings.49 This was the spectacular Greek gold from the area of the “Cimmerian Bosphorus,” the strait leading from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. The Black Sea region was colonized by the Greeks early in the first millennium B.C., and their influence was felt in the vicinity for centuries afterward. The jewelry in question was recovered in excavations carried out at the sites of Kul Oba and the Great Bliznitza, with the finds going to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.50 Some of this jewelry was apparently made by Greeks for Scythian clients.51

The tomb at Kul Oba, discovered by accident in 1830 and subsequently excavated, contained the burial of a man (found in a wood sarcophagus), a woman (laid out on a nearby couch), and a second man, identified as a servant.52 The tomb’s occupants were buried with their jewelry, metal vessels, and weapons; horse bones were found in a pit in the floor. The gold jewelry, dating to ca. 400-350 B.C., included a torque with terminals of Scythian horsemen, a bracelet with a twisted hoop terminating in the foreparts of winged sphinxes, a diadem worked in repoussé with enamel rosettes, gold appliqué plaques, three ornate gold earrings (a pair and a single earring), and a pair of elaborate disk pendants. The diadem, earrings, and disk pendants were all found with the female burial.

The Kul Oba pendants feature large disks depicting the head of the Athena Parthenos, the famous colossal chryselephantine statue made by Pheidias for the Parthenon in Athens. Each disk is bordered with a frieze of enameled ivy leaves, and from the disk hangs a network of loop-in-loop chains with tiny gold “amphora-shaped” pendants and rosettes. The pendants were found near the middle of the woman’s body, so they were presumably attached to her dress. The pair of earrings also features disks, decorated with filigree, granulation, and enamel, with three-dimensional flowers and rosettes. Suspended from each disk are two fancy rosettes, and hanging from the rosettes is a crescent-shaped pendant crowned with a floral acroterion at the center; rosettes run along the bottom of the crescent, and from these are suspended chains, more rosettes, bosses, and amphora- and seed-shaped pendants. The surface decoration is executed in filigree (plain, beaded, rope, and spiral-beaded wire), enamel, and granulation.

The Castellani firm made copies of the Kul Oba earrings, an example of which is now in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York. The enamel of the ancient pieces was not apparent in the engravings and was omitted in the modern versions; the earrings were made as brooches so that they could be worn.53 The modern works are essentially copies of the ancient ones, although they are easily distinguishable from their prototypes. Despite Alessandro Castellani’s appreciation for the irregularities and imperfections of ancient jewelry, when it came to the work of his own firm, he—or someone in the firm—decided to regularize all the forms, even out the applied decoration, and perfect the overall symmetry for this characteristically archaeological-style work.54

The Great Bliznitza mound, excavated between 1864 and 1885, covered the burials of at least five people, all dating to about 330-300 B.C.55 The most important, the “Tomb of the Priestess of Demeter,”56 was essentially intact when it was opened in 1864. The woman was buried with a bronze mirror and other cosmetic items, an Attic red-figured pelike, small leather shoes, four sets of horse trappings, and a large selection of sumptuous gold jewelry. The group included a pair of bracelets with twisted hoops and leaping lion terminals, a headdress decorated with barbarians fighting griffins, several rings, and two strap necklaces made of delicate woven gold chains with hanging pendants, as well as a pair of disk pendants and a pair of earrings that resemble those from Kul Oba.

The large disks of pendants feature depictions of Thetis or one of her sisters riding a hippocamp and carrying the armor of Achilles—on one pendant she carries a breastplate and on the other a greave. Running around the scene is a lotus-frieze border in spiral-beaded wire, with rosettes and bosses disposed along the lower edge of the disk.57 Hanging from the rosettes is a network of loop-in-loop chains with amphora- and seed-type pendants of various sizes, more rosettes, and tiny heart-shaped ivy leaves attached to the upper row of seed pendants. The larger of the two strap necklaces from the tomb was made to match the disk pendants, with rosettes and bosses running along the bottom of the strap and a festoon of loop-in-loop chains featuring an exquisite display of amphora and seed pendants. The strap is made from interwoven loop-in-loop chains; the terminals at the ends of the strap are lion heads with elaborate filigree collars.

Castellani copies of the Great Bliznitza necklace and pendants were shown at the 1876 and 1878 international exhibitions and were among Alessandro’s effects sold in 1884 to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).58 Like the Castellani copies of the earrings from Kul Oba, the Great Bliznitza copies are skillful replicas. In this case, the correspondence seems even closer, particularly with respect to the pendant chains and beads (although here, too, the enamel is missing). In some ways, the Castellani versions of the south Russian Greek gold are among the best archaeological jewelry that the firm produced: beautifully executed copies of authentic, unrestored ancient jewelry without modern additions or revisions—as Augusto Castellani had claimed, “a perfect imitation of the ancient work.”

Excavated vs. Unexcavated

A second category of prototypes is unexcavated (that is, looted) jewelry, which has lost its original archaeological context and has only a dealer’s provenance.59 In some cases, the alleged context is surely correct, but there is almost never a way to verify its accuracy. The objects plundered from Vulci in the haphazard digging and “said to come from Vulci” are examples of such works, as are pieces looted from unknown sites. In keeping with the times, many of the ancient jewels that the Castellani firm bought and sold fall into this category. These objects are often problematic in terms of authenticity or the possibility of modern repair or reworking. One of the most spectacular pieces in this second group is the Greek gold strap necklace “said to be from Melos”.60 The necklace is now in the British Museum, purchased in 1872 from Alessandro Castellani.61

The “Melos” necklace (ca. 330-300 B.C.) is a variation on the necklace from the Great Bliznitza, with amphora- and seed-shaped pendants hanging from chains suspended from a gold strap. The terminals at the ends of the strap are decorated with filigree palmettes. Rosettes and ivy leaves run along the bottom of the strap; beads and chains hang from these; from the chains dangle bosses, rosettes, and the seed and amphora pendants. Blue and green enamel enhances the decorative elements. A Castellani copy of this necklace in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum is an almost exact replica of the original, although the chains that hold the pendants are longer.62 As with the copies of the Greek gold jewelry from south Russia, the modern work is more regular; the terminals, in particular, are an interesting nineteenth ­century adaptation. But on the whole, the Castellani necklace is a wonderfully accurate piece of archaeological jewelry. The original “Melos” necklace was repaired, apparently under the direction of Alessandro Castellani, before it was sold to the British Museum.63 Recent examination has shown that several missing elements were replaced and the terminals reattached.64 In the nineteenth century, museums and collectors liked their objects restored and normally opted for repair, which had been standard practice for centuries.

A similar gold necklace was sold to the British Museum by Alessandro in 1872 along with the “Melos” necklace. This second necklace, “said to have come from Capua,” has been reexamined in detail, and although the necklace appears to be complete, the study showed that only half the necklace is actually ancient.65 The other half—strap, chains, pendants and all—is a high-quality reconstruction. This was a surprise to the museum, which had assumed all along that it had bought an ancient necklace. Although any number of nineteenth-century goldsmiths could have restored the pieces, the fine workmanship and the identity of the seller suggest that it was the Castellani shop.66 The possibility remains, however, that Alessandro acquired the necklace in its restored form and then sold to the British Museum. Why was only half the “Capua” necklace preserved? Either it was damaged when it was found or, more likely, the looters cut it and divided it between them, a common practice then as now.

The Case of the Campana Collection

As one travels farther along this path, one meets up again with Marchese Campana, whose collection was studied by the Castellani jewelers before it left for France. As was typical for the period, few of Campana’s antiquities had a documented provenience, excepting, of course, the ones he had dug up himself.67 Campana had many of his objects restored, some heavily, by a group of restorers that included Pietro and Enrico Pennelli and Filippo Gnaccarini, as well as the Castellani jewelers; some of the objects he acquired had already been restored.68 These objects were even further removed from their original contexts. In one case, Campana claimed that his statue of “Marius” was discovered in Otriculum, but in 1882 the head of the statue was shown to be modern, with a suspicious inscription on the base, and the statue is now considered a fake.69 Such were the hazards of nineteenth-century collecting.

One item that was apparently left in its original condition was the famous Campana gold diadem, the model for the Castellani diadem that Alessandro tried to sell to finance an excavation in Naples.70 Campana apparently thought that the diadem was from a tomb “near Palo in Etruria,” although Alessandro said it was “found at Cumae” near Naples.71

Far more problematic are the three gold hinged “Etruscan bracelets”, one “said to come from” Tarquinia, which are now recognized as pastiches.72 The individual panels of the “bracelets” are actually made from authentic Etruscan earrings of the “a bauletto” type, using the curved panels, somewhat flattened out, and hinged together with clasps at the ends.73 Two of the ” bracelets” are composed of nine panels, and the third of thirteen, which made it much too long for a bracelet. Just who accomplished these imaginative inventions is a matter of speculation, but the Castellani firm has often been suspected. However, it seems likely that the “bracelets” were already constructed before the Campana jewelry was examined by the Castellani firm in 1860. In particular, the modern additions to the “ancient” bracelets are cruder than one would expect of Castellani work.74 It is possible that Campana had them made himself or even bought them already reconstructed as bracelets. Whatever the role of the Castellani, and whether or not they knew the truth about the Campana “bracelets,” they produced their own bracelets based on the Campana pieces.75 They did not reproduce the originals exactly, but designed beautiful adaptations inspired by the “ancient” models. The new bracelets consisted of seven square, flat panels, joined by large hinges, with semicircular plaques at the ends. Not only Castellani, but also Giacinto Melillo of Naples made such bracelets, and the Melillo design was copied by other jewelers. Thus an “ancient” bracelet type was invented and perpetuated through the archaeological-style bracelets that purported to reproduce it. In this case, an ancient form did not influence a modern one but vice versa.

An important group of “Etruscan” scarab necklaces poses a somewhat different problem. The group includes an “ancient” necklace from the Campana collection acquired by the Louvre, an “ancient” necklace sold to the British Museum by Alessandro Castellani in 1872, and a third scarab necklace (the “Potocki” necklace) in a private collection. In addition, the Castellani firm made adaptations of the scarab necklace type. The famous Campana scarab necklace in the Louvre was made of twenty-three authentic Etruscan carnelian scarabs set in gold mounts and strung in alternation with twenty-four ancient Etruscan gold beads; the clasp features two gold dolphins.76 A recent collaborative study based at the Berlin Museum has shown that only three of the gold mounts are ancient, so the necklace was clearly made up from fragments.77 Furthermore, there is no wear on the gold beads near the suspension loops of the scarabs, so if this is an accurate reconstruction of an ancient necklace recovered in fragmentary condition, it was never worn as such. It is probably not a reconstruction of an original ancient necklace, however, because of the varying dates and types of the ancient pieces used: the gold beads all date to the sixth century B.C.; the scarabs include fifteen in the Etruscan “a globolo” style (late fourth to third century B.C.), two in the Etruscan “free style” (second half of the fourth century B.C.), five Greco-Phoenician scarabs (about 500 B.C. or slightly later), and one Greek (fifth century B.C.); the clasp is South Italian (“Tarentine”) and dates to the second century B.C.78

The three ancient mounts of the Campana necklace are all on the Greco-Phoenician scarabs and feature thick gold bands, decorated with spirals and bosses, which run around the base of the scarabs; prongs extend up from the top of the bands to secure the scarabs in the mounts. The nineteenth-century gold mounts are of the same type, with varying patterns decorating the bands. The newer mounts were presumably made for loose scarabs, a large number of which were found at Chiusi and Vulci. According to Dennis, at Vulci they came from tombs, but at Chiusi many scarabs were found in the earth of a certain slope beneath the city called “The Jeweler’s Field,” presumably turned up by the plough or washed to the surface by the rain.79 It has been assumed that the Castellani firm restored this necklace and made the modern mounts.80 However, the recent technical study has found the workmanship on the newer mounts to be comparatively crude, said to be due to the early date at which the necklace was put together (1859 or earlier).81 In fact, this cruder work may relate to the same phenomenon found on the Campana “bracelets” and suggests that the Castellani workshop was not involved in the fabrication of the Campana scarab necklace.

The scarab necklace in the British Museum was also found to be a pastiche, with twenty-one authentic Etruscan scarabs in the “a globolo” style (fourth to third century B.C.), twenty-two ancient Etruscan gold beads (sixth to fifth century B.C.), and a clasp with ancient “Achelous” masks and nineteenth-century additions.82 This necklace was sold to the museum in 1872 by Alessandro Castellani and is said to have been owned first by Lucien Bonaparte.83 None of the gold scarab mounts is ancient, however, so this was clearly never an ancient necklace. The type of mount is different from those on the Campana necklace, with beaded wire running around the base and four palmettes rising from the wire to secure the scarab; the palmettes are joined to one another in a delicate cage of twisted wire serving to hold the scarabs in place. This type of mount was derived from a third scarab necklace, the Potocki necklace, which was also examined for the Berlin Museum study.84

Like the other two scarab necklaces, the Potocki necklace is a nineteenth-century pastiche, although the design is somewhat different.85 The necklace is made from eleven ancient Etruscan scarabs (“a globolo” style) alternating with bead groups, consisting of a spherical gold bead and beaded gold spacer to either side of a long, faceted cordierite bead; the clasp features ancient gold antelope heads. One of the scarab mounts is ancient, and this was clearly the prototype for the nineteenth-century mounts on the Potocki necklace, as well as those on the British Museum necklace.86 The Berlin Museum study showed that the craftsmanship of the nineteenth-century additions to these two necklaces is superior to that of the Campana necklace.87 This suggests the possibility that the Castellani firm was involved in the reconstruction of the British Museum and Potocki necklaces—but that the Campana necklace was made up before it reached the Castellani studio.88

As with the Campana “bracelets,” the Campana scarab necklace served as a prototype for archaeological-style jewels made by the Castellani firm.89 The Castellani scarab necklaces in the Villa Giulia and Victoria and Albert Museum both incorporate ancient scarabs in an otherwise totally modern necklace. The case of the scarab necklaces reveals the varying degrees of pastiche that were created and the way they were regarded by the firm—or at least by Alessandro Castellani, who apparently deemed it acceptable to pass off the British Museum necklace as ancient, since it was made up of ancient scarabs, beads, and clasps.90 For the modern Castellani necklaces, the goldwork was all modern, but the scarabs were ancient—a nice bonus for anyone purchasing such a piece. Other types of scarab jewelry, including elaborate bracelets, were made by the Castellani firm, and variations on the scarab necklaces were made with gems, coins, or other kinds of pendants.91 These, in turn, were copied and adapted by Melillo and other archaeological jewelers.92 As with the Campana “bracelets,” a type of “ancient” necklace that seems never to have existed was invented and promoted through a long series of nineteenth-century imitations.

The Question of Forgery

Any inquiry into the ethics of the Castellani must take into account the practices of the times in which they lived and worked. Leaving aside the reworking of the Campana “bracelets” and scarab necklace, which cannot be attributed to the Castellani studio, several other jewels must be considered. These include the items sold by Alessandro Castellani in 1872 to the British Museum: the “Melos” necklace, an ancient necklace that had been repaired; the “Capua” necklace, half an ancient necklace that had been completed; and the scarab necklace, made up primarily of ancient pieces. Such restorations were not exceptional in an age where the repair and reconstitution of antiquities were common and accepted. In fact, the practice had an ancient pedigree, going back most famously to Gaius Verres, the notorious Roman proconsul and plunderer of Sicily, who established a workshop where he combined pieces stripped from various gold vessels he had looted to make entirely new works of art.93 The repair and reworking of antiquities continued, reaching a high point in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when an ancient statue of a sleeping hermaphrodite could acquire a plush mattress, and a fragmentary copy of Myron’s diskobolos could be restored as a dying gladiator.94 In this context, it seems quite plausible that Alessandro considered the items he sold to the British Museum to be “antiquities.”

Somewhat different is a necklace acquired by the South Kensington Museum in the 1884 sale of Alessandro’s effects after his death. The medallion of the pendant has now been identified as a sixteenth-century Tudor hat badge, adorned with Greek-style heads and a putto and strung on a Roman necklace.95 This is most certainly a pastiche, but whether Alessandro recognized it as such is unknown, and in any case, he did not sell it himself as an antiquity.

A more convincing deception is the group of Achelous heads, which were based on an original Greek Achelous in the Campana collection, now in the Louvre.96 The Berlin Museum acquired an Achelous pendant as part of an “ancient” necklace in 1878, from the Castellani family collection and with the provenance, “from Praeneste-Palestrina.”97 The central Achelous head is strung with six palmette pendants on a necklace of gold cylindrical beads. Recent tests have revealed that the Berlin Achelous pendant is a nineteenth-century copy of the Campana Achelous, though not exact, and the rest of the necklace is ancient. The technical study suggests that the Berlin Achelous is consistent with the work of the Castellani workshop.98

The British Museum also bought an Achelous pendant on a gold chain, acquired in the 1884 sale of Alessandro’s effects.99 The British Museum pendant is technically similar to the Berlin Achelous, and may be a nineteenth-century copy (presumably a copy of the Berlin head rather than the Campana Achelous); the chain of the British Museum necklace is ancient. Although it is not certain that the Castellani workshop made the Berlin and British Museum Achelous pendants, it seems possible.100 If so, the shop had produced outright forgeries, one of which was sold as an antiquity.101 The Castellani firm made their own archaeological-style versions of the Campana Achelous, which are immediately recognizable as nineteenth-century work.102

In one famous instance, Alessandro Castellani did sell an actual forgery. The purchaser was the British Museum (1873), and the object was an alleged Etruscan terracotta sarcophagus with a man and woman reclining on its lid.103 In fact, the sarcophagus was made by Pietro and Enrico Pennelli, broken up, and acquired by the museum in pieces. Castellani had himself bought the sarcophagus from Pietro Pennelli, who said he had excavated it at Cerveteri.104 Some scholars have suggested that Alessandro knowingly sold the museum a forgery while others have believed him an innocent victim.105 Whether or not he intended to deceive the museum, it is clear that Alessandro was an active partic­ipant in the art trade, as was his colleague Giovanni Pietro Campana. The forgers of the “Etruscan” sarcophagus, the Pennelli brothers, were restorers who worked for Campana, and Enrico Pennelli had followed the Campana collection to Paris to look after the objects.106

There were many forgers of antiquities active in Chiusi, Rome, and Naples, and it was inevitable that the antiquarian archaeologists would be taken in.107 According to Augusto Castellani, the beginnings of Italian archaeological jewelry are tied to the beginnings of the forgery trade in ancient jewels. He mentions the goldsmith Sarno, who had a reputable business in Naples making exact reproductions of ancient jewelry in the early nineteenth century, and whose practice gradually ended:

The artists who had been members of [Sarno’s studio] then set themselves to restore works of ancient Art, and even applied their talents to falsify them. In this last blamable industry they succeeded so wonderfully, that Naples became famous for imitations, so cleverly done by means of coloured earths, acids, and salts, as to render it difficult and almost impossible to know whether an article was really antique or not, except by persons who had long experience in the arts, and were well practised in archaeology.108

Clearly, the Castellani family was aware of the proliferation of forgeries and did not want to be associated with them. Along with the forgery of objects came the forgery of provenience—less obvious but just as problematic. Proveniences could be invented for forgeries, and also for authentic antiquities.

Forgery of Provenience

“Forged” or made-up proveniences plagued the antiquities market, with unexcavated objects “said to be from” Vulci, Chiusi, Palestrina, Cerveteri, Melos, Capua, Palo, Cumae, Tarquinia, and other sites.109 An attached find spot enhanced the historical value of an artifact, making it more desirable, and correspondingly boosting its price in the marketplace. These dealers’ provenances have clung tenaciously to works that have never been proved to come from the alleged find spots.110 An interesting case involves three pieces of Greek gold, “said to be from” Taranto, acquired by the British Museum from Alessandro Castellani in 1872: a scepter, ring, and elaborate necklace, all dated about 350 - 320 B. C. In an 1871 report recommending the purchase, Charles Newton, keeper of the Greek and Roman department, listed the three objects as “found in a tomb at Tarentum….This tomb was probably that of a priestess buried with the insignia of her sacerdotal office.” The “insignia” was the gold scepter, the only such Greek scepter in existence.111 This information clearly derived from Castellani, the dealer in this instance, and it has been associated with the objects ever since.

The scepter is now 20¼ inches tall (51.4 cm), as restored by Castellani.112 At its top is a Corinthian capital surmounted by a fruit of green glass set within a spray of acanthus leaves. The shaft of the scepter is adorned with gold wire netting, enlivened with dots of enamel.”113 The base is a gold disk, featuring a rosette at the center, surrounded by rings of decorative wire.114 A screw had been affixed to the base, presumably by Castellani, to secure it to the shaft. Other than this, the object is apparently authentic. The ring has an ornate box bezel and features the depiction of a woman, worked in relief, who is seated and holds an object that resembles a scepter.115

When the necklace was acquired, it was made up of fifteen rosettes, eight double lotus flowers, and eight spherical beads, as well as a clasp of two long beads and an additional rosette. Hanging from the rosettes were seven large female heads and eight amphora-type pendants; hanging from the lotuses were eight small heads. A rosette and seed pendant dangled from the central female head. Two of the large heads have bulls’ horns and ears, leading to their identification as Io, priestess of Hera and daughter of Inachus, king of Argos.116 Recent study has determined that the necklace was restored in the nineteenth century, presumably by Castellani, and the items that did not belong to the original necklace have now been removed.117 The Castellani firm produced modern versions of this necklace, including one in the Villa Giulia. The Castellani necklace has head plaques rather than sculptural head pendants, small shells hang from the plaques, and the smaller heads of the original necklace are replaced by seeds. Not “a perfect imitation of the ancient work,” the Castellani necklace is nonetheless a creative adaptation of the “Taranto” necklace and a fine piece of archaeological jewelry.

The information that Alessandro Castellani provided in 1872 on the three “Taranto” antiquities has featured in all subsequent studies of the objects. The three pieces, taken together, have given rise to a wonderful interpretation of the grouping:

The sceptre is, in fact, a symbol of authority, either royal or religious. Since any monarchy at Taranto seems to have ended around 473 B.C. if not before, it seems most probable that the sceptre belonged to a priestess, a symbol of the power of the deity whom she served. Now the presence in the same tomb of a ring with the depiction of a seated female holding a very similar sceptre suggests that the jewellery worn by this priestess may well have been chosen deliberately—hopefully not by Castellani. As a result, when we notice that two of the female heads on the necklace have horns and therefore represent Io, once the priestess of Hera, it is very tempting to wonder if the owner of this set of jewellery might have been a priestess of Hera at Taranto.118

However, “hopefully not by Castellani” is the only sustainable part of this theory. It is not certain that the three items were found together, and it cannot be proved that they came from a tomb at Taranto. Although recent scholars have noted this problem, the objects are still grouped together and associated with the “Taranto priestess.”119 The forged provenience that has followed these pieces since their sale by Castellani will forever prevent us from knowing their real find spot(s), owner(s), and significance.

The Castellani Legacy and the Study of Ancient Jewelry

The jewelry from the “Tomb of the Taranto Priestess” and two other groups of unexcavated finds in the British Museum have been used as the basis for a learned treatise on a South Italian school of jewelry, bringing in objects from other collections, most of which are unexcavated.120 Not only are stylistic traits defined for this group, but several workshops have been identified, and the coins “found” with one of the hoards are brought in as evidence for dating. Unfortunately, unexcavated objects have limited usefulness for this type of study, and coins “associated” with such finds cannot be used for dating purposes. Nonetheless, it is important to try to understand the artifacts. This conundrum is the legacy of the antiquarian archaeologists, the Castellani preeminent among them, a legacy that has affected all subsequent study of ancient jewelry.

Fortunately, this problem has come to the fore and is now a part of scholarly discourse.121 Students are learning to distinguish between excavated and unexcavated objects and to rely on the former in their study of the latter. Antiquities laws have been adopted to protect archaeological sites from looting and objects from illegal export.122 The issues of repair, reworking , and forgery of ancient jewelry—at first ignored and then approached with hesitation—are now the subject of lively inquiry, as can be attested by the technical studies cited in this article. And it is the Castellani family, ultimately, that can be thanked for this last development, with their loving examination of the techniques of ancient jewelry.

© Bard Graduate Center, Elizabeth Simpson.