292 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
tions
of the sixteenth century seems to prove the existence of the gem in the
Vatican treasury about the time specified, and it has been conjectured,
with some probability, that the emerald had been engraved by a
Byzantine artist at some time before 1453, when Constantinople fell
into the hands of the Turks, and that this gem formed part of the booty
they then secured. A print, often copied photographically and
otherwise, purporting to be a representation of this emerald portrait
of Christ, has no evidential value, and has either been freely worked
up from the details of the spurious letter of Lentulus to Tiberius,
giving a personal description of the Saviour, or still more probably
from a Rafaelesque type of Christ's head.18
The
beads of rosaries, when blessed by the Supreme Pontiff, or by one of
the dignitaries of the Church, are considered to be endowed with a
certain special virtue in favor of the individual for whom the blessing
is imparted. However, should this person loan the beads to another
with the intention of making him a partaker of this special blessing,
or indulgencing, they lose their virtue. It is prescribed that these
beads should be made of stone, glass, or some other durable material
not easily broken, in order that the effects of the blessing should not
be lost, or perhaps that the object so blessed should be less liable to
injury. Various precious stones as well as pearls are used for this
purpose, there being generally groups of ten small spheres, each group
separated from the other by a larger sphere, the ten smaller beads
serving to numerate the paternosters while the large bead is passed
through the fingers when a credo has been recited.
A legend very popular in the Middle Ages has been conjectured to be the source of the word "rosary" as applied
M See O. W. King, " Early Christian Numismatics," London, 1873, pp. 95-112; " The Emerald Vemicle of the Vatican."
