There is no civilization without its religion. There is no religion that does not present its own Theory of the origins of the universe. For thousands of years man has tried to establish the significance of the cosmos and man's role within the universe. The effort to answer these crucial questions seems to be the basis of every religious belief and every philosophical speculation. To this evidently insoluble Enigma man has sought to give answers of every kind, from the most naive or abstruse to the most Sophisticated and technological. As the concluding part of a trilogy of remarkable symbolic expressiveness, which began with the "science & nature" model and was followed by "human civilization", Montegrappa 1912 now presents the new "cosmos' enigma" limited edition, an exceptional writing jewel devoted to the most fascinating and Mysterious question of the story of mankind. The theme of the unity of everything that surrounds us and the fusion of man with the whole (the Cosmos or the universe) has always attracted every kind of conjecture. Every civilization has developed its myths to "illuminate" the mystery of the creation in an understandable narrative. There are tales of primordial beings, of anthropomorphic divinities, of demiurges guided by the intuition or by chance, by the indefinite entities that, by entering into contact with one another, shatter original chaos generating a new order (the exact meaning of the Greek word kosmos is "order"). The common element in all these legends is a single one: there were no witness to the appearance of the cosmos. Therefore the explanation of existence remains a mystery: everything one sees or touches is the fruit of the creation, the creator, and the creation itself, which remains wrapped in mystery.
Since the end of the Renaissance man’s approach to the problem has changed radically. From Copernicus and Galileo onwards, science has established, on the basis of unarguable facts, that the earth revolves round the sun and that the sun is just one of innumerable stars in the Milky Way, which in its turn is only one of innumerable galaxies that populate the universe. All the stars that we see on a clear night are celestial bodies similar to our sun, and it’s likely that planets similar to ours rotate round most if not all of the stars. Today we know that the universe in a state of continuous expansion the most widely credited cosmology (a scientific theory, which has come to take the place of mythology) supposes that the universe had it origins in an immense explosion, whose effects, are still in progress. From the original size of an atom of hydrogen, the cosmos has come to acquire its present diameter of about 15 thousand million light years – a measurement so vast that it is completely beyond our imaginative ability.
These fundamental scientific discoveries and the explorations of deep space that have taken place from the 1950’s until now have enormously deepened our knowledge of the cosmos. But the mysteries of its origins and its eventual end remain unresolved.
The idea on which the "cosmos' enigma" pen is based is that of symbolizing the vision of the immensity of the universe from within a space ship. The grid arrangement deliberately recalls Gothic art, combining Organic and geometric forms. There is a symbolic representation of the human technology of the 3rd Millennium that enables the heavenly bodies to be observed in all directions including the great galaxy. The various planets and the stars underline how small and insignificant mankind and even a whole planet seem to be within the boundlessness of space.
Surrounding the Adam of Michealangelo, levering the knowledge developed by mankind in the course of history, the perfection of the circle contrasts with the rest of the design and symbolizes the Earth as the point of the Universe from which Man sets out on his long journey in search of his proper role in the Cosmos. The Earth, by living “bubble” in which we live, can be appreciated best by removing oneself from the planet and observing it from space.
Finally, it is no coincidence, that the finger of Adam points towards a starburst of radiating lines, representing the infinite directions in which the search is proceeding, and identifying in particular a spiral arm of the enormous galaxy whose center still remains a mystery.
The Technics
Low relief engraving Montegrappa is bound to the refined art of low relief engraving, introduced in 1992 with the Commemorative fountain pen for the eightienth anniversary of the company's foundation. A special Technique is used for producing this type of engraving: the three-dimensional image is obtained by excavating the surface and removing small quantities of metal by applying tiny linear cuts with different
Depths. Precision engineering and thorough quality controls guarantee perfect workmanship of the End product. The cold enamel, very appreciated for its color range, its excellent conservation and resistance to hurts, is used for many times in goldsmith's and silversmith's crafts as decorative material. The enamel is a Lacquer realized following the Montegrappa specificities with the following process: the enamel is applied in very thin layers on the surface surrounded by slightly oblique edges. This process is repeated many times to obtain the required material thickness. The surface is smoothed and polished, then Covered with a transparent enamel which is also smoothed and polished to give it to the writing instrument higher artistic value and charm
Cosmos' Enigma is the third and last pen of the series dedicated to mankind and its history. The idea of the pen is to symbolize the vision of the immensity of the Universe from within a space ship. Respresentation of the human technology of the 3rd millennium that enables the heavenly bodies to be observed in all directions including is available in 1,912 fountain pens and 300 rollerball pens in Sterling Silver, 100 fountain pens and 100 rollerball pens in 18K solid gold.
