SMARAGDOS. 277
known
to them before. And to give greater weight to this opinion, he says it
was supported by the authority of the experienced mineralogist, M.
d'Augny.*
But
the careful consideration of the facts about to be stated will
inevitably lead us to a very different conclusion, for they demonstrate
that the Romans at least were plentifully supplied with the true
Emerald, and even possessed the Green Ruby, Pliny's Smaragdus
Scythicus, a much harder, and much rarer stone. In fact the same
mountains that supplied them with the Indian Beryls (Canjarjum, in
Coimbatore) yielded at the same time an equal abundance of the cognate
species, the deeper-tinted Emerald.
In spite of Dutens' confident denial of their existence, we actually do find
numbers of these stones, often of great size and beauty, adorning
mediaeval pieces of goldsmith's work (to say nothing of antique
jewelry), made centuries before the discovery of America—a fact in
itself sufficient to prove the previous existence of the gem in Europe,
from whatever other region it might have been derived. Large Emeralds,
besides Eubies and Sapphires, adorn the Iron Crown of Lombardy,
presented to the Cathedral of Monza by Queen Theodelinda (upon her
marriage, -A.D. 589), at the end of the sixth century, and which has
never been tampered with subsequently .f They equally appeared in the
crown of her husband King Agilulph, also of the same date, though that
had been remodelled into its last and more tasteful shape by the famous
Milanese goldsmith Antellotto Braccioforte in the fourteenth century,:f
but yet
