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It is a strong retrospective image, able to still put the shivers on you, that of Jacopus Turini de la Scharperia, a 'brave' goldsmith who from the Mugello countryside descended in 1369 in Florence devoured by the recent plague, to register his Signum to the Corporation of Corazzai, Chiavaioli and Fabbri and to seek fortune: Jacopus Turini de la Scharperia facit hoc signum.

Certainly, Jacopus could not have imagined that his gesture of resourcefulness would have given rise to a beautiful history spanning over six centuries. Nor that the goldsmith trademark he registered, today is officially recognized as the oldest in the world, also for continuity of management within the vicissitudes of a Goldsmith Lineage, as shown by a study by William O'Hara (director of the Bryant College's Insitute for Family Enterprise of Smithfield) which places the Florentine brand, for longevity, in fourth place in Italy and eighth in the world arena.

Looking at the Signum, or the trademark imprinted by Jacupus, one could read the representation - legitimate, because it is well-received - of a four-leaf clover with a spur. In fact, it proposes much more simply the letter "B", the initial of his father Bernardo. This is not a detail that can go unnoticed, because the history of the Torrini Goldsmith Lineage is a story that rests its foundations on the identity of goldsmith descent, understood both as a supreme tradition to be preserved and as an ethical responsibility for trade. For over six centuries, for over twenty generations, the Torrini trademark - as a card of a perfect domino - has handed down unique knowledge and knowledge, gaining increasing fame and notoriety for the originality of the goldsmith's work on which it has been affixed. In Florence, in Tuscany, in Italy, in the whole world.

In Siena, between the 14th and 15th centuries, Jacopus and his brother Tura worked on the construction of the Duomo, holding the office of Prior for 28 times and acquiring the title of "Noble of Siena". In Pisa Turino di Sano stood out for his ability by completing, for the Baptistery, the copper statue of San Giovanni Battista. His son Giovanni, on the other hand, has left us some splendid bronze reliefs of the Baptismal Font of the Baptistery of Siena, precious commissions that earned him friendship and professional esteem from the great sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.

And here again are the Torrini protagonists of the Florentine goldsmith scene in 1600 and 1700, when Francesco fixes his shop on the Ponte Vecchio; then in the nineteenth century, with Giocondo Torrini participating in the most important Universal Exhibitions of the time, winning the Medal of Excellence in London in 1862, the same years in which he was appreciated for his splendid parure in Florentine Mosaic hard stone: one of these it is now kept in the British Museum in London.

Through Guido and Franco, who succeeded each other in 1900, the famous Goldsmith Lineage has come down to the present day, with that unrepeatable aspect of authenticity which then gave birth to that direct testimony of such a strong and marked identity.

An identity that can be touched by hand in the refinement that fueled the Torrini 1369 Historical Archive, "the virtual place of an art", as it was renamed, already exhibited in Washington in 1972 and subsequently, the first experience in the Western world, in China in Nanjing in 1977. The Torrini 1369 Historical Archive with its more than 100 art-works in gold and silver, all bearing the ancient hallmark, corresponding to a time span of about 300 years, the newspaper library, they represent a historical-cultural reality of Made in Italy, unique in the world. Creations in gold and silver, delicious eighteenth-century brooches with a floral theme, drawings, commissions, testimonies of modern artists, pocket watches, very rare documents such as the original edition of 1568 of the "Treatises on Goldsmithery" by Benvenuto Cellini.

But it would be a gross mistake to think of a dynasty aimed only at conservation, on granted homologation, in short, on the display of the past so extraordinary, such as to justify even certain presumptions. "Our history obliges us to never compromise with the quality of our work - says Franco Torrini - and it is a continuous stimulus to refine the excellence of doing and our over hundred years of knowledge".

The Torrini goldsmith family, thanks to its "modus" and its knowledge, still rooted in the Florence of the past through the Torrini 1369 Historical Archive, in 2011 originated under license two different sectors that still represent the pinnacle of Florentine excellence today and who still use the Torrini Trademark to impress the products that come out of their activities, expressed behind a Code of Ethics aimed at maximizing their reputation:

The Ancient Goldsmith Manufacture, conducted and owned by Fabrizio, as an expression of a classic and elegant vision dedicated to the beauty of a jewel, a work of art or a smaller fashion accessory, carries out a continuous search, also marked to the new ornamental trends or to new technologies connected to the artisan thought that gravitates around the exclusive "workshop" where future ideas and behaviors are experimented.

The Historical Shop of Piazza Duomo in Florence, run and owned today by Francesca and her son Guido who officially seals the path of a jewel, a watch, like a perfume or a Torrini 1369 pen, which start from the manufacture to go towards that refined public that from the end of the nineteenth century throws its gaze on the window that overlooks the shadow of Brunelleschi's dome.

The jewels, the collections, the gold and silver workings of the Torrini continue to fascinate half the world, from the United States to Russia, from the East to old Europe.

It is estimated that currently, on the world stage, Torrini's goldsmith works in use by private collectors are over 150 thousand.

This is the story of the Signum, imprinted in 1369 by Jacopus de la Scharperia.

In these cases it is called "file rouge" but the written one looks so much like a subtle, indestructible "file d'or" that tends to infinity.