The Archival Heritage of the
Torrini Goldsmith Lineage
Trademark recorded by Jacopus in Florence in 1369 at the Guild of Armor, Blacksmiths and Locksmiths Manufacturers.
(Original text present in the State Archives of Florence)
The Praise of the Family that was by Guido Torrini.
The story of a Goldsmith's Lineage, their hopes, possible regrets, successes, failures, their conflicts, their ability to always look beyond the wall of life.
A stratification of stories that form generations, that is the path to a never-ending work.
From generation to generation with the sense of honor and dignity, knowing to maintain its identity, its integrity and its independence.
It is only under these conditions that one can overcome the centuries by maintaining love for the family with the traditions that parents have been able to convey to their children, with the desire to start each day on a journey that began long before.
We know the story of the old trademark to which we are all attached to honoring it, beyond its commercial value but only as a witness to a past to be handed down to the future.
Work is not necessarily easy but normal for those who have always had strong moral and spiritual values that are hard to beat.
Franco Torrini
Scraps of History of the
Torrini Goldsmith Lineage
(The data and historical references highlighted here bring out the most representative historical figures in the long history of the Torrini Goldsmith House and are taken from the research preserved in the Torrini 1369 Historical Archive, protected according to legal constraints.)
We are in the first half of the 1300s and this narrative is linked to a sign. The whole story started from a fundamental fact:
Jacopus Turini registers his trademark, the Signum, to the Guild of Fabbri and Corrazzai of Florence.
It is the year 1369.
In fact, in order to regulate the artisan activities of the surroundings of the city that come into contact with foreigners passing through the Republic of Florence, registration with one's trademark at the belonging Guild is required, which in the case of Jacopus was also the one that cost less than other much richer Arts. Thrift came to light in a time of great widespread poverty.
Jacopus comes from the small village of Battiloro, close to Parish church of San Giovanni Maggiore, an agglomeration of houses near Borgo S. Lorenzo, where since the early 1300s, with his father Bernardo and his brother Tura, in fact the three founders of the Lineage, had worked all metals with great skill and the precious gold by reducing it to leaves.
Jacopus lived in 1356 in the district of S. Giovanni in Scarperia and is estimated at Lire 4 and 15 soldi. (A.S.F. Estimate 282 -1356).
The Archival Heritage
The great archival heritage dating back to the period before the 1940-45 war was destroyed by the war, except for a small interesting part, of which, however, the most important nucleus was later surprised in the basements of Piazza Duomo in Florence on the occasion of the flood of the 1966 which devastated the center of the city with water, mud and oil.
The Archive received since then was later reconstituted with in-depth research on the past and enriched in the following decades with the discovery of documents and other materials relating to the activities carried out over the long period of time under the aegis of the Torrini 1369 trademark. .
It is made up of important historical testimonies of the Torrini's artistic past, museum works created by them over the centuries and a wealth of documents, ideas, experiences, drawings, letters from artists, bibliographic collections, awards, photos and cinevideo, participations in exhibitions in Italy and abroad from the mid-1800s to today.
The precious metal works of art are well classified and have been exhibited in Italy and abroad. Among the "mirabilia" there is a seventeenth-century draft and a pedal cleaner from the late 1800s.
HISTORICAL TESTIMONIES
Stories, Events, Places, Works, Characters that have traced the life of the members of the Torrini Goldsmiths Lineage, around the long path traced by the trademark, from the beginning to today.
A succession of emotions, of passions that the "signum" conceived and registered by Jacopus de la Scharperia in 1369 in Florence with the Guild of Cuirasses Makers, Locksmiths and Blacksmiths, has left behind it like a long white trail in the infinite sea.
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The Trademark
The Torrini 1369 trademark, an endless challenge.
With over 650 years and more than 25 generations of experience and knowledge behind it, the Torrini 1369 trademark carries with it an unparalleled cultural fortune. To know the work carried out by Torrini around this ultra centenary "signum", there is a need today to understand the artistic intention, the quality, the shape, the fact that they have never given up on their past while continuing to follow the evolution of history.
This does not mean at all that Torrini live in the past of skilled goldsmiths or work within predetermined barriers. Identity, integrity and freedom of interpretation and movement is a fundamental condition for the continuity of any successful living organ. It is therefore a question of the balance between tradition and innovation that they, as an ultra-centenary company, have managed to give this symbol a multifaceted and potentially multipurpose space.
