Home › Snake Stones and Bezoars › Snake Stones and Bezoars: Rudolph

Snake Stones and Bezoars: Rudolph

Also one greate Bezar stone, sett in goulde that was Queene Elizabeth's, with some Unicorne's Horne, in a paper; and one other large Bezar stone, broken in peeces, delivered to our owne handes, by the Lord Brooke, the two and twentith day of Januarie, one thousand sixe hundred and twenty and two. After the death of Rudolph II, in 1612, the Venetian envoy, Girolamo Soranzo, wrote to the Doge, "No other monarch has ever accumulated so many jewels." He also communicates the fact that some at least of these gems were to follow him to the grave, for when interred, his head was covered with a cap adorned with many valuable precious stones. However, Rudolph's fondness for the more splendid gems and jewels was accompanied by a very particular taste for the collection of Oriental bezoars, of which a large number are noted as in his possession at the time of his death. These ranged in weight from 1 loth (1/2 oz. Troy) to 25 1/2 loth (a little more than one pound Troy); most of them were provided with a rich gold setting, and one especially prized bezoar, weighing about 8 ounces, reposed in a silver box decorated with 32 diamonds and 26 rubies. Another of very singular shape, resembling "four toes," is also entered on the list. Besides these the imperial collection included several other curious animal concretions, probably regarded as having therapeutic virtues, such, for instance, as a "stone" from the body of a doe; this had been found by a certain Helmhardt Jorger and by him presented to the emperor; another of these treasured concretions came from the stomach of a stag. A specimen of the famed "eagle-stone" is also listed; this had a double gold setting, and on it were inscribed the words "Piedra Geodas," showing that the real character of this stone as a geode was then well understood. Some of the gold-mounted bezoars of Rudolph II are still to be seen in the Hofmuseum, at Vienna. One is surrounded by a gold band with a scroll pattern; another has a capping of gold and stands upon a golden base, and still another, capped and belted with gold, is attached by a chain to a golden bowl. This was probably to be used as a test of the freedom from poison of any beverage in the vessel. A bezoar of the eighteenth century is mounted upon a tree of gold, against the trunk of which a wild boar is leaning. This may be only a decorative adjunct, or it might be an indication of the particular animal source of this special bezoar.