Home › The Austrian Yellow › The Austrian Yellow: Charles

The Austrian Yellow: Charles

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 to be supposed that a diamond weighing 139 1/2 carats could be worn in a ring, so that the "Florentine" must have been a different stone from that here spoken of. Besides De Comines, whose account of the Duke's diamonds is much more reliable than that of Berquem, writing 200 years after the event, tells us that "his great diamond, which was one of the largest in Christendom," was lost, not at the battle of Nancy, in January, 1477, but at that of Granson in 1476, on which occasion Charles lost "all his large jewels" (toutes ses grandes bagues), together with all his baggage. The story goes that this "great diamond" was lost by Charles in the confusion of the rout, but that a common Swiss soldier found it, together with a valuable pearl in a box. Mistaking the diamond for a bit of glass, he threw it aside, but on second thoughts picked it up from under a waggon where it had fallen. He then sold it for a florin to a priest at Montigny, who in his turn disposed of it for three francs to the Bernese authorities. At that time there was residing at Berne a wealthy merchant, named Bartholomew May, who had many relations both of a commercial and private character with Italy. Having purchased the gem for 5,000 florins, and a present to the Mayor, William von Diessland, through whose mediation the sale had been effected, May sold it for a small profit to a Genoese dealer. From him the Milanese Regent, Ludovico Moro Sforza, bought it for some 10,000 florins, and when the treasures of Milan were distributed, Pope Julius II. purchased it for 20,000 ducats. But this story is in flat contradiction to the positive statement of J. J. Fugger, who assures us that the diamond in question was purchased from the Bernese Government, not by Bartholomew May, but by his own great uncle, Jacob Fugger, head of the famous Nurenberg family of that name, together with the "Cap of Maintenance," and other jewels belonging to the Duke of Burgundy all for 47,000 florins.

In a curious document, illustrated by himself in 1555, and published by Lambeccius in the Bibliotheca Caesarea, Fugger gives a detailed account of these jewels. But his description of Charles the Bold's large diamond, which, he says, was the talk of all Christendom, answers to that of none of the large diamonds now extant in Europe, and least of all to the "Florentine. He says it formed a pyramid five-eighths of an inch square at the base, with the apex cut into a four-rayed star in relief, each star coinciding with the middle of each face of the pyramid. It was the central piece in a beautiful pendant of diamonds, rubies, and pearls, which remained for some years in the Fugger family. It thus came into the hands of the author of the manuscript, who sold the pendant to Henry VIII., of England, in 1547, shortly before his death. It continued to form part of the English regalia during the reign of Edward VI. But soon after her accession to the throne, Queen Mary presented it to her husband Philip II., 1554 And thus it happened, as Fugger remarks, that after a period of seventy-six years (1477--1554) this diamond returned to the representative, in the fourth descent, of its original owner, Charles the Bold, of Burgundy.

It is thus placed beyond doubt that the stone lost by Charles, whether at Granson or Nancy, ultimately found its way through Switzerland, and Jacob Fugger, and his great nephew J. J. Fugger, into the possession of Henry VIII., by whose daughter Mary it was presented to Philip II. But the "Florentine" passed directly from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to Maria Theresa. Consequently the introduction of the Fugger family into the above official account of the stone, with which they had nothing to do, arises out of a misconception or a confusion of the traditions associated with two distinct gems. It thus appears that the "Florentine" cannot clearly be traced to Charles the Bold at all. Its authentic history really begins with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in whose possession it was when examined and weighed by Tavernier. Its form and treatment ("cut on all sides in facets") are distinctly Indian, which again renders it extremely improbable that this stone was one of those manipulated by De Berquem for the Burgundian prince. We are thus led to the conclusion that the "Florentine" probably reached Italy direct from the East, and that the many stories and legends associated with Charles the Bold and his regalia have been transferred to the "Florentine" through the ignorance of writers who lived long after the events they were describing.

Whatever doubt might remain on this point is disposed of by a consideration of the respective forms of the stones themselves. Both are said to be star-shaped. But we have seen that Fugger describes the Burgundian as "a pyramid, with the apex cut into a four-rayed star in relief," whereas we are officially told that the "Florentine" "is cut in nine surfaces, covered with facets forming a star with nine rays."

Another still more extravagant tradition identifies the "Florentine" with the "Sancy," from which, as will be seen further on, it differs in weight, form, colour, and history. The true origin of both of these historical gems may doubtless be wrapped in obscurity, but that they are two totally distinct stones there cannot be the shadow of a doubt.