Rajola: an ancient history and a mystery to be unveiled
Rajola is a leading company in the production of jewelry with natural stones.
Founded in Torre del Greco in 1926 and focused on the production of corals and cameos, today the company has reached the fourth generation: a history of growth and success, characterized by a vocation for the world of the sea and for its precious gems.
In addition to coral, over the years the brand has added pearls and natural stones to its collections, creating jewellery for all tastes and all ages. A world of colors among pearls, stones and corals, to be discovered in the new collections and in the history of the brand, as outlined in the volume "Mistero Sciacca": "In 1875, a coral bank was found off the coast of Sciacca, Sicily .
It was a coral of a strange orange color, different from the one that was collected in that area. The strangest thing that so much, so much coral was piled up, stacked, in very narrow spaces of the seabed. The news spread and there were many professional coral fishermen who came from everywhere, from Torre del Greco in the first place. When it seemed that the bank was about to run out, a second larger one was found, and then a third larger still. This incredible fishing lasted over twenty years, until the end of the century. It is estimated that over 14 million tons of coral were extracted from the sea. Scientists were asked to study the matter, to understand the reason for all that coral, to verify if such a massive fishing could not damage the reproduction of the same coral in the area.
The answer was always the same: all that coral was there because in that area there was the presence of the volcano that, a few years before, had given rise to the island Ferdinandea, the famous "island that isn’t there". It was a dead coral, and as such it could not reproduce.Nobody wondered why there was ever so much in the same place, nor how it was possible that an organic material, such as coral, was kept in spite of such high temperatures: nobody except Giuseppe Rajola, entrepreneur with the "hobby" of the biology of the coral. The research, through increasingly exciting phases, is enriched by stories, anecdotes, collected both in Sciacca and in Torre del Greco, two sides of the same coin.
A research that adds a new charm to an already fascinating material such as coral. Of course, it can be said that the Corallo di Sciacca is an extraordinary, unrepeatable piece of the story of Mother Nature, now unveiled".
