Florence, Mrs. Spenser Smith, daughter of Baron Herbert, the Austrian ambassador in England. She was born at Constantinople, during her father’s residence in that city. Byron made her acquaintance in Malta, but Thomas Moore thinks his devotion was more imaginary than real. In a letter to his mother, his lordship says, he “finds her [Florence] very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric.”
Thou mayst find a new Calypso there
Sweet Florence, could another ever share
This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine.
Byron, Childe Harold, ii. 30 (1810).
Florence (The German), Dresden, also called “The Florence of the North.”
Florence (Weir). A beautiful girl committed to the care of a young man who expects to meet a child. Although hardly released from an engagement to another girl he falls in love with his charge, when his former flame recalls him, but generously resigns him to her younger rival.—Ellen Olney Kirk, One too Many (1889).
Florent, the nephew of “the emperor,” is condemned to death, but is offered his life if he can solve a certain riddle. An old deformed hag promises him the solution if he will agree to marry her afterward. He keeps faith with his deliverer, and on the wedding-night she is transformed into a beautiful woman.—Gower, Confessio Amantis, I.
Chaucer puts this story into the mouth of “The Wife of Bath,” Canterbury Tales. He does not name the hero, but makes him a bachelor of King Artour’s court. The story is much older than Gower, and is found in the legends of several countries, but Chaucer probably borrowed it from him while changing it in details.
Florentine Diamond (The), the fourth largest cut diamond in the world. It weighs 139-1/2 carats, and was the largest diamond belonging to Charles “the Bold,” duke of Burgundy. It was picked up by a Swiss peasant, who sold it to a priest for half a crown. The priest sold it for £200 to Bartholomew May, of Berne. It subsequently came into the hands of Pope Julius II., and the pope gave it to the Emperor of Austria. (See Diamonds.)