POPULAR SEARCHES:   rings  cut stones  earrings  tourmaline  beryl  yellow supphire  
 
This chapter is tagged (labeled) with: 

Ch.17: The Australian Yellow Diamond

Ch.17: The Australian Yellow Diamond Page of 312 Ch.17: The Australian Yellow Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
THE AUSTRIAN YELLOW.                   163
to the Genoese, who sold it in turn to Ludovico Moro Sforza. By the intercession of the Fuggers it came into the Medici treasury at Florence. When Francis Stephen of Lorraine exchanged this Duchy against the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, he became the owner of the ' Florentine Diamond.' Through this prince, who became later on the consort of the Empress Maria Theresa, this diamond came into the private treasury of the Imperial House at Vienna. At the coronation of Francis Stephen as Emperor of Germany at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the 4th day of October, 1745, the ' Florentine diamond' adorned the crown of the House of Austria."
It is much to be regretted that this official statement should adopt the erroneous view that the " Florentine " belonged originally to Charles the Bold. If it did belong to him, a most violent supposition in any case, it was certainly not one of the three dia­monds which Robert de Berquem tells us that prince placed in the hands of his great uncle, L. de Berquem, inventor of the art of diamond cutting, " to have them advantageously cut, according to his skill. He cut them forthwith (that is apparently in 1476), one thick another thin {foible), and the third in triangular shape.. And he succeeded so well that the Duke, delighted at such a surprising invention, gave him three thousand ducats in recompense." He adds that Charles gave the " foible," or thin stone to Pope Sixtus IV.; and the triangular one to Louis XI; and that he kept the third or thick one for himself, wearing it in his ring " when he was killed before Nancy, one year after having had them cut, that is in 1477." But it is not
Ch.17: The Australian Yellow Diamond Page of 312 Ch.17: The Australian Yellow Diamond
Table Of Contents bullet Annotate/ Highlight
Streeter: Great (Famous) Diamonds
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page