The most wonderful, probably, of all treasures-trove is the famous "treasure of Guarrazar," discovered in 1858 at a place called La Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo.[13] It included eleven crowns of pure gold set with precious stones. The peasants who unearthed the treasure broke up the crowns and divided the spoil. But the story of the discovery became known; and having been pieced together, most of the crowns were conveyed to the Musée Cluny at Paris, and the remainder placed in the Real Armería at Madrid. The most important of those at Madrid is the crown of King Svinthila (621-631). Its surface is pierced with holes arranged in rose-shaped patterns, and set with large pearls and cabochon sapphires. From the lower rim hangs a fringe of letters set in the cloisonné manner with red glass paste, suspended by chains. The letters form the inscription SVINTILANUS REX OFFERET. The chief crown in the treasure at Paris is that of King Reccesvinthus (649-672). It consists of a broad circle of gold, 8 inches in diameter, mounted with thirty huge Oriental pearls and thirty large sapphires, all set in high collets and separated by pierced open-work. The margins are bands of cloisonné work with inlays of red glass. Suspended below by twenty-four chains are letters of gold inlaid like the borders forming the words [Symbol: cross pattée] RECCESVINTHUS REX OFFERET. Attached to each letter is a square collet hung with a pear-shaped sapphire. The crown is suspended by four chains from a foliated ornament encircled with pendent pearls and sapphires, and surmounted by a capital of rock crystal. A massive cross 4¼ inches long and 2½ inches wide hangs below the crown. It is set with eight enormous pearls and six large and brilliant sapphires, the latter mounted in high open bezels. From its foot and limbs hang three paste imitations of emeralds, with pear-shaped sapphires below. The combination of the pure gold with the violet sapphires and the somewhat faded lustre of the pearls produces an exceedingly harmonious effect of colour. [13] Lasteyrie (F. de), _Description du trésor de Guarrazar_, 1860. The majority of these crowns were votive offerings to a church, to be hung above the altar; the larger ones may have been actually used at coronations, and afterwards suspended in some consecrated building and the dedicatory inscriptions attached in remembrance of the ceremony. They certainly appear to be native work of the Spanish Visigoths, executed under the influence of the style prevailing in the Eastern Empire. At a date not long after their production, the use of this particular species of decoration of jewellery, owing probably to the revival of the art of enamelling, rapidly declined in western Europe; and though it continued to be practised in the East, it had virtually disappeared at the close of the Merovingian period--by about the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West. CHAPTER VIII