Montegrappa 1912 - Fine Writing Jewels - Limited Editions

Montegrappa dedicates this precious creation to writing: a pen which, through sophisticated symbolism and the customary masterly craftsmanship, celebrates the role of writing as a means of transmitting knowledge (in Greek, sophia) and the development of human thought.
On the cap is an image of the Rosetta Stone, an archaeological discovery of immeasurable importance. On it appears a single text written in three different language systems (hieroglyphics, demotic, and classical Greek). This allowed to decipher the hieroglyphics. Other symbols of Egyptian civilisation complete the decoration of the cap: samples of hieroglyphics and demotic writing, the sphinx, the pyramids and a representation of Thot, the god of knowledge to whom the Egyptians attributed the invention of writing.
The barrel of the pen shows an example of Greek and a detail of Raphael’s famous fresco “The School of Athens” in which the philosophers Aristotle and Plato and the mathematician and thinker Pythagoras can be seen. Some of the 4,000 characters representing all the alphabets in the world which decorate the walls of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina are inscribed on the barrel of the Sophia Limited Edition.
The cap and barrel, made of sterling silver or yellow gold in the case of the more precious versions are decorated using the exclusive technique of burin engraving, with applications of yellow gold and pink gold (or pink gold and white gold in the case of the yellow gold version) which add relief and magnificence to the details.
Sophia Limited Edition is available in sterling silver fountain pen (1200 pieces as the length in km of the Valley of the Nile), sterling silver rollerball pen (331 pieces in memory of the year when the Library of Alexandria was founded: 331 b.C.), 18K yellow gold fountain pen (58 pieces as the number of individuals depicted in Raphael’s fresco “The School of Athens”) and 18K yellow gold fountain pen with diamonds (11 pieces as the number of floors in the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina).