The Florentine
Among these lost stones is the Florentine, a clear yellow diamond of 137 carats, which Tavernier saw among the treasures of the Duke of Tuscany in 1657. Legends say that Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was wearing the stone in 1476, when he fell in battle. Picked up by a peasant as an attractive pebble, the stone was sold for a florin; after various adventures it fell into the hands of the Medici. Later, when the Grand Duke of Tuscany married Maria Theresa of Austria, the Florentine became part of the Austrian crown jewels. It went into exile, after World War I, with the imperial family, and half a hundred rumors since have set it in as many hands.
The Great Mogul
Tavernier was probably the only European who ever saw the Great Mogul. It was shown him by Aurangzeb, sixth Mogul Emperor of Hindustani, who had usurped the throne in 1658 and imprisoned his father, the great Shah Jehan. Tavernier said it weighed 280 carats and resembled half an egg sliced through the middle. He was told it had weighed 787 carats in the rough, but had been so badly cut that the jeweler, instead of being paid, had forfeited all his fortune. (Such were the risks conscientious jewelers ran!) When the Persians sacked Delhi in 1739, the Great Mogul may have been among their loot. It probably still adorns a beauty in Iran—unless it turned up in the western world as the Orloff Diamond.
The Orloff
Similar in shape to the Great Mogul but weighing (one can hardly say “only”) 199 carats, the Orloff was among the more than 2,500 diamonds owned by Catherine the Great, ruler of all the Russias. One story says the gem was stolen by a French grenadier from the eye socket of a Hindu idol and hidden in a self-inflicted leg wound. Such accounts recur in tales of many jewels. Another story says that it is one of the stones resulting from the cleavage of the great rough diamond that also produced the Kohinoor.
At any rate, it was purchased in Holland in 1774 by the Russian Count Gregory Orloff for 400,000 rubles ($450,000). The Count had been a favorite of Catherine’s; she had made him a prince and the commander-in-chief of her armies. The Court did not mind—or could not help—the number of Catherine’s lovers; but she seemed on the verge of actually marrying the Count. Her entourage therefore set their wits to work, and Orloff fell from favor. For Catherine’s name day, when others at Court presented the customary bouquets, Orloff gave her the diamond. His family’s fortune had been pledged for it, but it failed to re-open Catherine’s arms to him. She never wore the diamond but had it mounted in her sceptre, right under the double eagle. Under that symbol of imperial power, it presumably rests in the Kremlin today. A more prosaic version of the Count’s enterprise states that he assured himself of heart balm by selling the diamond to Catherine for £90,000 plus a £4,000 life annuity.
The Shah of Persia
Another diamond reported by Tavernier and now reposing in the Kremlin is an 88-carat bar-shaped stone of finest quality. It has a tiny furrow cut in it, presumably to secure the cord by which Tavernier, in 1665, saw it suspended in front of the Mogul throne. It also has engraved on it three names and dates. The first name is that of an Indian prince, Bourhan-Nizam Shah II; the date, the year 1000 in the Mohammedan count, the western 1591. The second engraving, in the western year 1651, sets this gem as another among the treasures of the great Mogul Shah Jehan. The third date is western 1824; the owner, the Shah of Persia.