Instead of the close setting which had so long satisfied the jeweller, open setting for precious stones became universal. Countless old and valuable ornaments perished. The diamonds and other precious stones were picked out of them and transferred to newer settings, and the beautiful old metal-work was ruthlessly melted down. Many fine jewels during the course of the nineteenth century have likewise been spoiled and reduced in value by their owners attempting to adapt them to a prevailing fashion. Vast is the number of family treasures that have undergone the fate of remounting. It is to be hoped that the new-born interest in the beautiful work of earlier craftsmen may help to save what is left from the same sort of destruction that the ancient churches of our land have undergone as the result of ill-judged "restoration." THE MODERN REVIVAL Long prior to the developments that have taken place in recent years, attention had been attracted to the artistic qualities of gold and an impetus given to the manipulation of the simple material. It was early in the "sixties" that notice was first drawn to the gold jewellery then being executed in Rome, and the discoveries that had been effected in the working of the wrought metal by the firm of Castellani. The head of this famous family was the goldsmith Fortunato Pio Castellani, one of the best-known jewellers and dealers of his day. In 1814, at an early age, he started a business in Rome, which he developed about 1826 on the lines of the antique work. The process of production of the old granulated gold jewellery of the ancient Etruscans--that in which the surface is covered with minute grains of gold set with absolute regularity--had long been a puzzle and problem to jewellers. Castellani was deeply interested in the lost art, and searched Italy through to find some survival of it. At last in St. Angelo in Vado, a village of the Apennines, in the corner of the Umbrian Marches, he found a caste of local goldsmiths who had preserved it in what seemed to be an unbroken tradition. He transported some of them to Rome, and together with his sons Alessandro and Augusto succeeded in imitating the tiny golden grains of the Etruscans and soldering them on to the surface of jewels. The work he accomplished in this direction has become famous all the world over. In 1851 Fortunato retired, and on his death in 1865 his property was divided--Augusto retaining the business, Alessandro setting himself up as a collector and dealer. Augusto, born 1829, carried on the traditions of his father's atelier, and was afterwards promoted to the Directorship of the Capitoline Museum.