hinged one to the other, and richly jewelled and enamelled.
It is regarded with great reverence, owing to a legend that the
inner band of iron has been hammered out of one of the nails
of the true cross. The crown is so small, the diameter being
only 6 in., and the circlet only 2½ in. in width, that doubts have
been felt as to whether it was originally intended to be worn
on the head or was merely meant to be a votive crown. The
legend as to the iron being that of one of the nails of the cross
is rejected by Muratori and others, and cannot be traced far
back. How it arose or how any credence came to be reposed
in the legend, it is difficult to surmise. Another historical crown
is that of Charlemagne, preserved at Vienna. It is composed of
a series of four larger and four smaller plaques of gold, rounded
at the tops and set together alternately. The larger plaques
are richly ornamented with emeralds and sapphires, and the
smaller plaques have each an enamelled figure of Our Lord,
David, Solomon, and Hezekiah respectively. A jewelled cross
rises from the large front plaque, and an arch bearing the name
of the emperor Conrad springs across from the back of this cross
to the back of the crown.
At Madrid there is preserved the crown of Svintilla, king of the Visigoths, 621–631. It is a circlet of thick gold set with pearls, sapphires and other stones. It has been given as a votive offering at some period to a church, as was often the custom. Attached to its upper rim are the chains whereby to suspend it, and from the lower rim hang letters of red-coloured glass or paste which read +svintilanvs rex offeret. Two other Visigothic crowns are also preserved with it in the Armeria Real.
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| Fig. 1.—The Papal Tiara (without the infulae). |
In 1858 a most remarkable discovery was made near Toledo, of eight gold crowns of the 7th century, fashioned lavishly with barbaric splendour. They are now in the Cluny Museum at Paris, having been purchased for £4000, the intrinsic value of the gold, without reckoning that of the jewels and precious stones, being not less than £600. The largest and most magnificent is the crown of Reccesvinto, king of the Visigoths from 653 to 675. It is composed of a circlet of pure gold set with pearls and precious stones in great profusion, which gives it a most sumptuous appearance. It is 9 in. in diameter and more than ½ in. in thickness, the width of the circlet being 4 in. It has also been given as a votive offering to a church, and has the chains to hang it by attached to the upper rim, while from the lower rim depend pearls, sapphires and a series of richly jewelled letters 2 in. each in depth, which read +reccesvinthvs rex offeret. The second of these crowns in size is generally thought to be that of the queen of Reccesvinto. It has no legend, but merely a cross hanging from it. The six others are smaller, and are all most richly ornamented. They are believed to have been the crowns of Reccesvinto’s children. From one of them hangs a legend which relates that they were an offering to a church, which has been identified with much probability as that of Sorbas, a small town in the province of Almeria. It has been surmised that in the disturbances which soon afterwards followed they were buried out of sight for safety, where they were eventually discovered absolutely unharmed centuries afterwards. For a detailed description of these most remarkable crowns the reader must be referred to a paper by the late Mr Albert Way (Archaeological Journal, xvi. 253). Mr Way, in the article alluded to, says of the custom of offering crowns to churches that frequent notices of the usage may be found in the lives of the Roman pontiffs by Anastasius. “They are usually described as having been placed over the altar, and in many instances mention is made of jewelled crosses of gold appended within such crowns as an accessory ornament.... The crowns suspended in churches suggested doubtless the sumptuous pensile luminaries, frequently designated from a very early period as coronae, in which the form of the royal circlet was preserved in much larger proportions, as exemplified by the remarkable corona still to be seen suspended in the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle over the crypt in which the body of Charlemagne was deposited.”
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| Figs. 2-4 from Meyer’s Konversations Lexikon. | ||
| Fig. 2.—Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. | Fig. 3.—Crown of the German Empire. | Fig. 4.—Crown of the Austrian Empire. |
Of modern continental crowns the imperial crown of Austria (fig. 4) may be mentioned. It is composed of a circlet of gold, adorned with precious stones and pearls, heightened with fleurs-de-lys, and is raised above the circlet in the form of a cap which is opened in the middle, so that the lower part is crescent-shaped; across this opening from front to back rises an arched fillet, enriched with pearls and surmounted by an orb, on which is a cross of pearls.
The papal tiara (a Greek word, of Persian origin, for a form of ancient Persian popular head-dress, standing high erect, and worn encircled by a diadem by the kings), the triple crown worn by the popes, has taken various forms since the 9th century. It is important to remember that the tiaras in old Italian pictures are inventions of the artists and not copied from actual examples. In its present shape, dating substantially from the Renaissance, it is a peaked head-covering not unlike a closed mitre (q.v.), round which are placed one above the other three circlets or open crowns.[1] Two bands, or infulae, as they are called, hang from it as in the case of a mitre. The tiara is the crown of the pope as a temporal sovereign (see Tiara).
- ↑ A coloured drawing, done in the first half of the 18th century, of the magnificent tiara made by the celebrated goldsmith, Caradosso, for Julius II., is in the Print-Room, British Museum. It was re-fashioned by Pius VI., but went with other treasure as part of the indemnity to Napoleon. The splendid emerald at the summit, which was engraved with the arms of Gregory XIII., was restored by Napoleon and now adorns another papal tiara at Rome. In this drawing the three crowns (a feature introduced at the beginning of the 14th century) are represented by three bands of X-shaped ornament in enamelled gold.
