The Crown of King Charles III of Bourbon

She is defined as the most beautiful in Europe and is the protagonist of a story that seems like the script of a detective story. I'm talking about the crown of Charles III of Bourbon, traces of which have been lost for more than 200 years.

The crown was made by Elisabetta Farnese, queen of Spain, who commissioned a pool of goldsmiths, diamond cutters and setters, mainly Florentine, called upon to realize the design of the crown by the Frenchman Claude Imbert.

To create the crown, which was intended for her son Carlo, Elisabetta Farnese used some of the family diamonds of which she was the sole heir, to which she added other diamonds found on the market between Florence and Venice. In the center of the crown there was a large pink diamond "The Farnese diamond", a 42-carat stone which, thanks to a Cellini technique with a vat setting, became, as Imbert defined it, a "perfect purple colour".

But what happened to the most beautiful crown in Europe? History tells us that she survived her first bearer, that is Charles, but not the second, Ferdinand IV. It seems that the crown was with him when the royals fled towards Palermo fleeing the French invasion with an incalculable amount of precious goods. And it was during that transfer that traces of him were lost. There are many hypotheses. It could have been stolen during the transfer, or lost, some also consider the idea that it could be at the bottom of the sea or others think it could have been dismantled to repay Nelson, author of the royal transfer, or even to repay debts.

Do you know that it is possible to see it? Obviously not the original but an identical copy obtained thanks to the original drawing found in the historical archive of Naples. The replica is in gilded silver with approximately 300 cubic zirconia instead of diamonds and an amethyst instead of the large central Farnese Diamond. The crown copies Imbert's design perfectly, in some ways we can say that the most beautiful crown in Europe has been reborn.