The extensive network of roads that crossed the Roman Empire was constructed from materials found along each route. In opus incertum, irregularly shaped stones were carefully fitted together, creating a varied yet durable surface. Among the earliest and most strategically important roads of the Roman Republic was the Via Appia, linking Rome with Brindisi in south-eastern Italy. Construction began in 312 BCE. Substantial sections of the ancient road survive, and parts of its route remain in use today.
Over the centuries, opus, meaning “work” in Latin, entered the language of music. From the seventeenth century, opus numbers were used to identify published compositions. The expression magnum opus, meaning “great work”, came to describe an artist’s or writer’s most significant achievement.
For Sassi, an individual life can be understood as an opus incertum: a composition formed from unpredictable stones. Some become milestones, others mark changes of direction. Academic achievements, marriage, children, professional accomplishments, movement between countries and adaptation to unfamiliar surroundings all become part of the same path. Each fragment remains connected to what came before and what follows.
The palette moves through a continuous spectrum of blues and greens, colours associated with two elements essential to life: water and air. Blues recall the changing tones of the Mediterranean; greens, sunlight filtering through a forest canopy.
Achieving these colours became part of the collection’s long development. Natural gemstones are layered beneath irregularly faceted domes of clear quartz or topaz, creating doublets and triplets in which colour acquires depth and variation.
“It took me years to find these particular colour combinations. I was searching for gemstones that could capture the qualities of water and air, moving from deep night blue through turquoise, then from warm green to deep forest green.”
Renilde Vervoort
Blue agate, green turquoise, green-blue chalcedony, lapis lazuli, turquoise, green agate, prehnite and chrysoprase are among the natural gemstones used throughout the collection. They are set within 18-carat yellow gold links whose surfaces alternate between a hand-engraved Florentine finish on the vertical walls and mirror-polished gold above. Rough and smooth, irregular and ordered, the construction returns quietly to the idea with which the collection began: a path assembled from disparate elements, each finding its place within the whole.
