The 137-carat fancy colour yellow diamond belonged to the private collection of Austrian royalty and vanished shortly after the conclusion of World War I in 1918.
The fate and whereabouts of the Florentine Diamond have been mythologised over the past century; however, reports from the New York Times have confirmed that the diamond has been safe and secure in a Canadian vault.
It’s been revealed that, shaken by the horrors of World War I and World War II, the Hapsburg family transported the diamond to Canada for safekeeping. For security purposes, the family agreed to keep the diamond’s location a secret for a century.
“After Charles I died from pneumonia in Madeira, where the family had moved from Switzerland, Empress Zita and her children relocated to Spain, and then to Belgium in 1929. As tensions built across Europe, Zita and her eldest son, Crown Prince Otto, vigorously opposed the growing Nazi threat, and Otto offered his services to the increasingly fragile Austrian First Republic as it struggled to remain independent of the Third Reich,” explains Robin Pogrebin.
“When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, an event known as the Anschluss, Otto was declared an enemy of the state. Concerned that Germany was about to invade Belgium, Zita fled with her eight children, ultimately arriving in the United States in 1940, according to the family.
“The empress, family members said, carried the jewels with her in a small cardboard suitcase. Finally, with American help, the family travelled to Canada and settled in a modest house in the province of Quebec. In 1953, Zita returned to Europe and left the jewels in the care of the Quebec bank. She died in Switzerland in 1989 at 96.”
The report noted that the family has no plans to sell the diamond and declined to speculate on its value. The owners reportedly intend to display the Florentine Diamond in Canada as a gesture of gratitude to the country for taking in the family amid war.
With that said, members of the Austrian government have demanded an ‘immediate review’ to determine whether the diamond should be the property of the state.
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