The Castellani were a family of goldsmiths, collectors, antique dealers and potters who created a business "empire" active in Rome during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The progenitor specialized in the creation of jewels emulating the ones that then came to light from the necropolis of Etruria, that were found in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum or that could be observed in the Campana collection.
In 1859, the Castellani devoted themselves for five months to the restoration and cataloguing of the Campana Collection; they thus had the opportunity to refine their observations on the technique of granulation and filigree and to finally achieve an acceptable reproduction of them.
Alessandro, who had fled to France for political reasons in 1860, opened with great success new locations in Paris and Naples in which antiquities, mainly of Etruscan origin, were traded.
[5] In 1981, Geoffrey Munn, a jewelry historian, published an article in The Connoisseur magazine examining the Castellani family's revival of ancient goldsmithing techniques.