From our

Gioielli Italiani Collection

This artwork in gold and white features a quotation from Dante's La Vita Nuova.

The quotation reads:

“In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.”

La Vita Nuova ("The New Life") was a literary piece written in a prosimetrum style, alternating between prose and poetry, by Dante in 1295. It is the story of the life-changing love of Dante for a young woman named Beatrice Portinari, a character who also figured prominently in his Divine Comedy.