BrandItalian
Bulgari
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In 1881, a silversmith from the village of Kalarrytes in Epirus, Greece, arrived in Rome with his family and three years later opened a small shop on Via Sistina. Sotirio Voulgaris, who Italianized his name to Sotirio Bulgari, came from a region historically regarded as one of the great silversmithing centers of the Balkans. His first pieces reflected that tradition: silver objects drawing on Byzantine and Islamic decorative vocabularies, combined with floral motifs then fashionable in Rome.
The business expanded steadily. By the early twentieth century, Bulgari had relocated to Via Condotti, the artery of Roman luxury commerce, and when Sotirio died in 1932 his sons Costantino and Giorgio inherited a house already positioned among the city's finest jewelers. The brothers brought new energy and taste to the work. Through the 1930s they developed a geometric sensibility, setting diamonds in architectural patterns alongside colored stones, moving away from the platinum Art Deco orthodoxy that dominated French houses of the period.
The postwar decades proved transformative. In 1948, drawing on ancient Roman snake armlets, Bulgari pioneered the Tubogas technique, a flexible tubular metal construction without visible solder, to create the first Serpenti watch. That sinuous bracelet-watch became the house's defining icon and the beginning of a design philosophy that has always set itself apart from French high jewelry: more color, more Roman architectonics, less deference to tradition.
Hollywood arrived at Via Condotti in the 1950s. Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Anna Magnani and Gina Lollobrigida were among the clients who brought the house international visibility, and Taylor in particular collected Bulgari with a seriousness that amounted to connoisseurship. The house formalized its visual identity in 1934 when it adopted the BVLGARI spelling, replacing the U with V in reference to the classical Latin alphabet inscribed on Roman monuments.
Further signature lines followed. The B.zero1 ring, launched in 1999 and inspired by the spiral geometry of the Colosseum, gave the house a contemporary anchor that could be worn outside formal contexts. The Divas' Dream collection drew on the fan-shaped mosaics of the Caracalla baths. Each collection has located its source material in Roman antiquity while maintaining a resolutely modern finish.
LVMH acquired Bulgari in 2011 for approximately 4.3 billion euros, the largest acquisition in the conglomerate's history at that time, and production has continued from Rome. At auction across Nordic houses, Bulgari pieces appear regularly in the upper tier of jewelry lots. The top recorded sale in this market is a gold watch at 78,800 SEK, with diamond rings from the Dedicata a Venezia line and B.zero1 pieces appearing frequently at Bruun Rasmussen and Bukowskis. Vintage Serpenti pieces and signed High Jewelry examples from the 1960s and 1970s attract the strongest bidding.