Monday, July 8, 2019

Made in Constantinople

From Vintage News:
One of the only two Byzantine crowns to survive, the first being the Holy Crown of Hungary, is the Monomachus Crown. It is made of seven golden plates which are engraved with pictures of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus; his wife and his sister, Zoe and Theodora; two female dancers; and two allegorical figures. The crown was discovered by a farmer in 1860 in Ivanka pri Nitre in Slovakia while he was plowing and it was given to a local landowner who sold it to the Hungarian National Museum in 1861.
The crown was probably made in Constantinople in 1402 and it is believed that it was a female crown, a gift to Queen Anastasia of Kiev from the Hungarian King Andrew I. According to legend, it was some version of the Holy Crown of Hungary, but there are elements on the crown which are not that old. It is said that King Andrew I was crowned in February 1047 when he traveled from Hungary to Constantinople and brought the crown with him back to Hungary. (Read more.)
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