Seven gold ingots, richly gleaming, fit into the palms of two hands. That’s all the gold needed, 65 ounces, to regild the entire dome of the state Capitol.

On Monday, a security carrier transported the ingots to the airport, where they are being flown to Italy to be crafted into gold leaf by artisans at a company nearly three centuries old.

The gold comes from Colorado, just as in 1908, when a band of gold miners pooled their resources and donated 200 ounces of gold to gild the dome in commemoration of the state’s gold rush.

There was a problem with the original copper dome — that metal oxidized, which made for a dull finish.

The new sparkle comes from gold — about $120,000 worth — donated by AngloGold Ashanti and Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Co.

The last time the dome was regilded, in 1991, the gold came from many international sources, but this donation means that the tradition of Colorado gold is back again.

“Back in 2006, when the piece of cast iron fell off the dome, I contacted the state and said, ‘We have a gold mine here,’ ” said Marie Patterson, manager of state government affairs for AngloGold Ashanti, who also is a member of the board of directors for Colorado Preservation Inc.

What fell off was a metal fastener that holds the cast-iron architectural details in place — a century of Colorado weather had created rust and corrosion.

Restoration began in 2010 after the legislature passed a package of bills.

In the spring of 2011, when officials were debating whether they could afford regilding, Patterson called back.

“I said, ‘Remember me? I can get you some gold,’ ” she recalled.

In September 2011, company officials presented a 68-pound chunk of gold doré — semi-purified gold — in a ceremony with Gov. John Hickenlooper.

That gold bullion was then trucked via a security company to a refinery in Salt Lake City, where it was transformed into 24-karat ingots.

Now en route to Florence, those ingots will be milled at the gold-leaf factory of Giusto Manetti Battiloro, which has made gold leaf for such famous structures as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, Buckingham Palace and the Hall of Mirrors at the palace of Versailles.

The artisans will create 140,000 tissue-thin sheets of gold leaf — squares of about 3 inches, more or less, depending on whether they’ll be applied to the top or the bottom of the dome.

This summer, behind the scrim and scaffolding that now covers the dome, the gold leaf will be applied and burnished inch by inch with tiny cotton balls.

“It will take about a half dozen people to do about 100 square feet per day,” said state architect Larry Friedberg.

Restoration of the dome is about half finished.

“It’s on time and in budget,” Friedberg said.

The work on the lower dome has been finished, including sandblasting off lead-based paint that covered the exterior for 110 years, and repainting with three coats of high-performance paint.

The next level of scaffolding will soon be constructed so that the regilding process can begin.

The entire dome will be shrouded until the final unveiling, likely in the summer of 2014.

Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083, coconnor@denverpost.com or twitter.com/coconnordp