Monasteries, Convents, and Churches: Gem Collections (part 1)

Among the celebrated emeralds noted by George Agricola (Agricolae, "De natura fossilium," lib. vi, Basileae, 1546.) (1490-1555) was a large one preserved in a monastery near Lyons, France. This is also mentioned by Gesner, who states that it was shaped as a dish, or shallow cup, and was held to be the Holy Grail, like its rival at Genoa. (Gesner, "De figuris lapidum," Tiguri, 1565, ff, 112v, 113r). Another of Agricola's emeralds was somewhat smaller, but nevertheless measured nine inches in diameter and was in the chapel of St. Wenceslaus, at Prague; this may have been a chrysoprase, as at the present day many fine peeimens of this stone can be seen in St. Wenceslaus, where the walls are inlaid with the golden green gem-stone. Still another, larger than the last named, was set in the gold monstrance in Magdeburg, and was believed to have been the handle of Emperor Otho I's knife, since it was perforated. Possibly, however, the emerald, if genuine, was an Oriental stone, for it was customary to pierce rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc., in the East so as to string them for necklaces or attach them as pendants to a jewel.

In the convent-church of St. Stephan, in Persian Armenia, erected about the middle of the seventeenth century, it is related by the French traveller Tavernier that there was preserved a cross said to be made out of the basin in which Christ washed the feet of the Apostles. Set in this cross was a white stone, and the priests asserted that when the cross was laid upon the body of one seriously ill, this stone would turn black if he were about to die, but would regain its white hue after his death. ("Les six voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier," La Haye, 1718; Voyages en Perse, liv.i, chap.iv).