While nothing definite is known as to the goldsmith who executed this
work, its style and general character suggest the conjecture that it may
have been produced by the artist who made the “Crown of Charlemagne” in
Vienna, really a crown executed for Conrad III, King of the Germans
(1093–1152), the first Hohenstaufen, and also several regal ornaments
for the latter’s consort, Queen Gisela. In addition to the jewelled
decoration of its reverse, the front of the cross is set with many
pearls, and the form of these settings is one of the chief arguments
adduced in favor of attributing it to the maker of the so-called “Crown
of Charlemagne.”[527]
An ecclesiastical jewel of great beauty and remarkable historic interest
is known as the Cross of Zaccaria. It was secured in 1308 by Ticino
Zaccaria at the capture of the ancient Greek colonial city Phocæa, in
Asia Minor, and was donated to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa.
This cross is of silver gilt, measuring 64 cm. in height and 40 cm. in
width, and within it behind a crystal is set a piece of the Holy Cross.
It is profusely adorned with precious and semi-precious stones, there
being 57 good-sized rubies, emeralds, sapphires, carnelians, malachites
and amethysts, besides 44 smaller stones and 299 of still lesser size.
The jewel is now preserved in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa.
The greatest treasure in the Cathedral of Chartres was the “Sacred
Shrine.” It was made of cedar-wood covered with gold plates and was
adorned with an immense number of precious stones including diamonds,
rubies, emeralds, sapphires, jacinths, agates, turquoises, opals,
topazes, onyxes, chrysolites, amethysts, garnets, girasols, sardonyxes,
asterias, chalcedonies, heliotropes, etc. These had been presented by
many different donors during a long period of time. In front of this
shrine was a cross composed entirely of precious stones, comprising 56
rubies and garnets, 18 sapphires, 22 pearls, 8 emeralds, 8 onyxes and 4
jacinths. When this was first placed in the cathedral is not known, but
it was there in 1353, as it is noted in an inventory made at that time.
An uncut diamond weighing about 45 carats, and constituting one of the
adornments of the shrine in 1682, was said to have been the gift of a
marshal of France; another ornament, an oval agate engraved with the
Virgin and Child, may now be seen in the Louvre where it forms part of
the Sauvageot Collection.[528]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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