True Ignis Sapphire

Old English trēowe, faithful — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as the canonical version of their family. True red, true blue: the saturation is full, the hue is neither shifted nor adulterated. Sits at the center of the bold and crisp buckets, marking the unequivocal middle of any chromatic family.

Latin ignis, fire. As a color modifier, ignis implies a Latin-fire-and-ignis-fatuus-and-sacred-fire quality, the visual register of Vestal-fire-and-ignis-fatuus hand-Latin-fire-and-ignis-fatuus-and-sacred-fire Vestal-fire-and-ignis-fatuus-and-Roman-Vesta-temple ignis-and-Latin-fire-and-Vestal-flame surfaces under Vestal-fire-and-ignis-fatuus-and-Roman-Vesta-temple Vestal-Virgin-and-Forum-Romanum sacred-flame-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to lux and ventus in usage.

An iron-and-titanium-bearing corundum — the same mineral as ruby, hardness 9 on the Mohs scale, mined for two millennia from Sri Lanka, Burma, Madagascar, and the Cashmere mines of British India. The color refers to a fine Kashmir-cut sapphire: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue with the gem's signature internal velvet — a quality of light scattering in the stone that faceted glass cannot replicate. Cooler than cobalt, deeper than azure.