Word: diadem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Outside St. Peter's all Rome seemed to be assembled, kneeling and praying. Finally the new Pope appeared on the balcony and the papal tiara-the jewel-studded triple diadem that symbolizes the sanctifying, ruling and teaching powers of the church-was placed on the large, rugged peasant head of Angelo Roncalli. He heard the ancient Latin formula: "Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art the father of princes and of kings, Pontiff of the whole world, and vicar on this earth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory, world...
...lights -Corneille, Racine, Pascal, La Fontaine-still glow. Among them was Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné, whom generations of critics have crowned "the queen of letter writers." In this selection of 272 out of many hundreds of De Sévigné letters, the diadem seems to have its fair share of paste jewels, but it is worn with a regal flourish and idiosyncratic authority...
...laborers extracted a stream of beautiful things dating from the time when Rome was young. One tomb contained the skeleton of a young Etruscan woman with a necklace of Baltic amber and a beautifully worked gold brooch an inch and a half in diameter. Another yielded a gold diadem seven inches across, decorated with bearded heads and an Amazon shooting an arrow. Equally interesting are the bronzes, one of which, a candelabra, shows the figure of Hermes leading a soul to the underworld...
...bronze-covered hubs and iron rims. Of the chariot itself little remained, but among the bronze ornaments from its vanished sides lay the delicate skeleton of a young woman. She must have been (or been loved by) a person of high position, for on her head was a golden diadem weighing more than a pound, with beautifully modeled winged horses and lions' paws. Professor Joffroy does not think the crown was of local manufacture, but he has no idea where it was made...
...painted cavity below lay the all but pulverized skeleton of a middle-aged man. His fine cloth raiment was in tatters, but his burial jewelry made as rich a display as it had when he was interred 13 centuries ago. A jade diadem covered his skull, and chunky jade earrings lay where his ears had been. A jade mask with inlaid emerald eyes covered his face. Inside the mouth was a jade bead, and a long jade necklace hung over a beaded breastplate...