It was as if he had attacked me, with a lofty


head, irritated by wild hunger,


so that the air itself trembled before him

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the features section.

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    Questi parea che contra me venesse


    con la test'alta e con rabbiosa fame,


    si che parea che l'aere ne temesse

    (Inferno I, 46-48, translated by Philalethes)

    "Before I founded 'Alighieri', I felt lost," says British designer Rosh Mahtani about the origins of her jewelry label. And it proves: In order to identify with Dante and the feeling of disorientation described by him in the Divine Comedy at the beginning, one does not have to be a man, from Florence or into the? Past. It only takes a soul that is receptive to the art of language. Something sounded like in it when Rosh Mahtani immersed himself in the Divina Commedia in the final year of her literature studies at Oxford University - and literally got lost in its chants.

    How do we find our way? What makes us What do we learn on the way? What legacy do we have with us? Where do we arrive Rosh Mahtani has Indian roots, was born in London and spent the first years of her life in Zambia before returning to the British capital. As a young adult she lived temporarily in France and Italy, today she lives again on the Thames. Life as a journey on which you can find yourself far from well-known paths like in a dark forest, from which a leopard, a lion and a wolf break frighteningly, but in which there is also a companion waiting to show the way: what Dante Virgil was, for Rosh Mahtani alone the question of what should become after graduation, Dante.

    She herself tells the story in interviews something like this: Still toying with fashion design, she had a job in the online accessories trade when she was looking for solace in the Divine Comedy after a breakup and took a course in wax modeling. The forest of being lost thinned. With no goldsmithing experience, she decided to make a piece of jewelry for each of the hundred chants of the commedia. The ten prototypes distributed among friends soon became more. In 2014, when she was in her mid-twenties, Rosh Mahtani founded her company Alighieri with its headquarters and handicraft production in the traditional Londonder jewelry quarter Hatton Garden, not as cheap as possible in the Far East.

    One of the first parts was the “Il Leone” medallion. Deliberately imperfect? ​​A Venetian coin from 1778 cast in bronze using the lost wax technique and 24 carat gold-plated, it shows a striding lion. On a link chain, the discreet or bulky pendant, depending on the size, is intended to remind wearers of any gender that life cannot go ahead without courage. The corresponding verse from the First Canto of the Divina Commedia is quoted in the original on the website.

    Rosh Mahtani served several trends straight away: the tendency towards jewelry as talismans, towards shiny yellow gold and coin pendants based on ancient models; the ennoblement of gold-plated objects as it-pieces by influencers and celebrities; the desire for something handmade, individual, sustainable. Alighieri works with recycled and responsibly sourced materials and has a wide price range for sculptural statement pieces between fashion jewelry and noble items that show off cultural history and can take on private significance.

    Rosh Mahtani wants to create “modern heirlooms” that seem to have been taken with them from the very first encounter, like the characters of Dante. The "Infernal Storm" ring looks like metal frozen in a glowing river and alludes to the singing in which Paolo and Beatrice dance in the vortex of unredeemed souls. The "Woven History" bracelets also play with the appearance of liquefaction, of the battered and sham antiquity. It is reminiscent of the Ghibelline Buonconte da Montefeltro, who in the “Inferno” saves a single tear from hell. Rosh Mahtani should only cry with happiness in view of her steadily growing business. In 2020 she was also the first jewelry designer to receive the Queen Elizabeth Award. From inferno to paradise with Dante - that's how it can go.


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