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Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald

Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Page of 377 Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
278 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
long before the discovery of the Peruvian mines. They may still be inspected as set in company with almost every other precious stone in the crown of the queen oi the Spanish Goth Eeceswinthus, lately found near Toledo (now in the Hôtel de Cluny), a work of the following cen­tury (625) to the Lombard jewels just adduced. They appear in the Cross of the German Emperor Lotharius, made in 823 (Sacristy at Aix-la-Chapelle), and in the Crown of Hungary, made at Constantinople in 1072 by the order of Michael Ducas. And, to conclude, a fine stone was to be seen in the tiara of Julius II., who died in 1513, thirty-two years before the conquest of Peru. This stone, engraved with the Pope's name, was long preserved " amongst the jewels of the Louvre, but (according to Barbot) was presented by Napoleon to Pius VIL* And De Boot writing in 1600 remarks incidentally that "within these fifty years, since the Peruvianf have been imported, the Oriental have greatly fallen in value : from half that of the Diamond to the quarter of the price." And no wonder : so vast was the importation of the hoards of the plundered Caciques and Incas that Joseph dAcosta men­tions that the ship which brought him home from New Granada in the year 1587 had on board two chests of Emeralds, each weighing a hundred pounds. Cellini also, speaking of the antique gems he used to buy of the Lorn bard diggers in the gardens and vineyards circumjacent
Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Page of 377 Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald
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