or,
Who wears me shall perform exploits;
And with great joy shall return.
From these lines it is evident that the ring has been worn as an amulet; and there is a very probable conjecture that it may have been presented to some distinguished personage when he was on the point of setting out for the Holy Land, in the time of the Crusades. The inscription is in small Gothic letters, but remarkably well formed and legible. The shape of the ruby, which is the principal stone, is an irregular oval, while the diamonds are all of a triangular form and in their native or crystallized state.
A ring of gold was found at Coventry in England. It is evidently an amulet. The centre device represents Christ rising from the sepulchre, and in the background are shown the hammer, sponge and other emblems of his passion. On the left is figured the wound of the side, with the following legend: “The well of everlasting lyffe.” In the next compartment two small wounds, with “The well of comfort,” “The well of grace;” and afterwards, two other wounds, with the legends of “The well of pity,” “The well of merci.” On the inside is an inscription in Latin which embraces the amulet, having reference to the three kings of Cologne.[207]
Sir Edmund Shaw, goldsmith and alderman of London, directed by his will circa 1487, to be made “16 Rings of fyne Gold, to be graven with the well of pitie, the well of mercie and the well of everlasting life.”
Benvenuto Cellini mentions that, about the time of his writing, certain vases were discovered, which appeared to be antique urns filled with ashes. Amongst them were iron rings inlaid with gold, in each of which was set a diminutive shell. Learned antiquaries, upon investigating the nature of these rings, declared their opinion that they were worn as charms by those who desired to behave with steadiness and resolution either in prosperous or adverse fortune.[208] (By way of parenthesis: This dare-devil man of fine taste, Cellini, having finished a beautiful medal for the Duke of Ferrara, the patron of Tasso, the magnificent Alfonso sent him a diamond ring, with an elegant compliment. But the ring was really not a valuable one. The Duke threw the mistake upon his treasurer, whom he affected to punish, and sent Cellini another ring; but even this was not worth one quarter of the sum he owed him. He accompanied it with a significant letter, in which he ordered him not to leave Ferrara. The artist, however, ran away as fast as his legs would carry him, and was soon delighted to find he was beyond the fury of the “Magnifico Alfonso.”)
§ 5. Ancient physicians carried signets or rings, frequently wearing them upon the thumb, upon which were engraved their own names, sometimes written backwards, or the denominations of the nostrums they vended. With regard to one of these seals, we find the word aromatica from aromaticum, on another melina, abbreviation of melinum, a collyrium prepared with the alum of the island of Melos.[209] A seal of this kind is described by Tochon d’Annecy bearing the words psoricum crocodem, an inscription that has puzzled medical antiquaries.
It has been suggested that the use of talismanic rings as charms against diseases may have originated in the phylacteries or preservative scrolls of the Jews, although it is easy to imagine that, in the earliest days of medicine, the operator, after binding up a wound, would mutter “thrilling words” in incantation over it, which, in process of time, might be, as it were, embodied and perpetuated in the form of an inscription, the ring, in some degree, representing a bandage.[210] It appears to us this is much further from fact than that a barber’s pole represents an arm with a bandage.
Amulet rings for medicinal purposes were greatly in fashion with empyrics and ancient physicians.[211]