The legendary 137-carat yellow gem known as the Florentine Diamond, long believed lost after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has resurfaced.
Now, three members of the former Habsburg imperial family say the fabled diamond was never stolen or lost, but safeguarded in secret for more than a century, according to the New York Times.
Once among the most prized jewels of the Habsburg crown, the diamond’s trail went cold after World War I.
In 1918, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire crumbled, Emperor Charles I, a member of the storied dynasty and nephew of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination had set off the war, sensed the end of his reign.
With Bolshevik and anarchist uprisings threatening the monarchy, he took urgent steps to protect the royal family’s most valuable possessions.
To protect the Habsburg family’s treasures, Charles ordered the royal jewels to be sent to Switzerland, where he and his family were preparing to flee into exile. Among them was a remarkable 137-carat diamond, famous for its pear shape, bright yellow color, and rich history.
Known as the Florentine Diamond, the stone had once belonged to the powerful Medici family, rulers of Florence, before passing to the Habsburgs after the Medici line died out. When the royal family fled Vienna, however, the diamond seemed to vanish without a trace, and with it, any certainty of its fate.
Over the decades, rumors flourished. Some claimed the gem had been stolen or smuggled out of Europe. Others believed it had been recut into smaller stones. Its disappearance inspired fascination and countless tales, even becoming the centerpiece of novels and films such as The Imperfects, which wove fiction around the mystery of the lost diamond.
Now, more than a hundred years later, that mystery has finally been solved. Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen, 64, the grandson of Emperor Charles I, shared the remarkable story of the precious jewel with theTimes.
During World War II, the family fled Nazi persecution and eventually settled in Canada, via the United States.
Habsburg-Lothringen posited that the “little suitcase” his grandmother, Empress Zita, traveled with before their arrival in Quebec contained the precious cargo, and went into a vault where it “just stayed.”
Zita returned to Europe in 1953, and died in Switzerland in 1986, aged 96.
According to Habsburg-Lothringen, the Empress confided the diamond’s whereabouts only to two of her sons, Archdukes Robert and Rodolphe, and instructed them to keep the information confidential for 100 years after Charles died in 1922.
“I think she wanted to make sure that it [the diamond’s whereabouts] was not [disclosed] in her lifetime,” Habsburg-Lothringen said.
She issued the directive as a security measure during the family’s exile, fearing that revealing the gem’s location could endanger both the diamond and her descendants.
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Robert and Rodolphe honored their mother’s wishes throughout their lives, never disclosing the secret publicly. Before their deaths, they passed the information to their own sons, preserving the knowledge within a tight circle of the Habsburg lineage.
This quiet chain of trust, Karl said, safeguarded the family’s treasure and allowed the diamond’s legend to endure for more than a century.
The family now wants to display the jewel publicly at a Canadian museum as a thank you for taking the family in. They have no plans to sell, according to the Times, and also declined to speculate on the diamond’s worth.
Recent archival discoveries and documentation have since confirmed that the diamond was indeed transported to Switzerland along with other imperial valuables and remained in Habsburg possession rather than being sold or lost.
