us back to 4777-4515 b.c. The
craft has persisted in some sort in every civilised country ever since.
For instance, thirteenth-century Paris boasted a gem-cutters' guild,
and a similar guild flourished in the German city of Nuremberg round
about 1370. At that period, too, Bruges, in Flanders, was already
playing a leading part in the art of gem-cutting, and one of the
burghers of that city, Ludwig van Berghen, revolutionised
diamond-cutting by being the first to use a perfectly symmetrical and
scientific arrangement of the facets.
It
was to this famous Flemish diamond cutter that Charles the Bold sent
three diamonds for the purpose of having them faceted after the new
fashion. Amongst these stones was one that measured three-eighths of an
inch along one edge, and is said to have been the first known
pyramidical stone of any important size. The stone was subsequently
stolen from its royal owner's tent or taken as loot on the battlefield
by a common soldier. From fear of discovery or from ignorance of its
great value, the thief cast it aside, but then recovered it and sold it
to a knowing priest, who returned it to its owner and received a good
reward. Then the diamond passed into the hands of the Bernese
Government, which in turn sold it to Jacob Fugger, a member of the
famous family of Augsburg merchants, for the enormous sum of 47,000
florins.
But
the great stone did not abide with the Fuggers. It came back to royalty
in the shape of Henry VIII of England, and from him passed to his
daughter Queen Mary I, who gave it to Philip of Spain. The rest of its
history is obscure. It may still be a part of the Spanish crown jewels,
