Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-07
THE FATAL .TIARAS.
Historic Headpieces of the Popes Have Been Very Expensive
 Articles of Adornment.


 The vicissitudss of the papal tiaras lave been remarkable, says the Pall Hall Gazette. Take the case of the first, that of St. Sylvester. Clement V. had that brought out of the sacrarium at the Lateran to Avignon. It served the uses Pf some of the popes there. Gregory RI. took it back to Rome. The French cardinals who elected Clement VII. in opposition to Urban VI, carried 1t back 10 France. Benedict XIII. took 1t with him to Spain. It was restored to the Iateran; and, somewhere about 14S4, it was stolen. So it disappears from his tory.
 Meanwhile Martinus ", the elect of the council of Constance, in 1417, had supplied himself with new tiara, which also disappeared. His successor, Eugenius ", replaced it. But he had 10 pledge his tiara for the 10000 crowns that were required to pay the expenses of the council of Florence and the en- tertainment of the oriental bishops. He got back, indeed, an Avignon tiara; and Calixtus III. sold the stones out pf 1t to provide the sinews for the holy war against the infidel. Thus despoiled, this tiara was not good enough for the fastidious Venetian who was Paul II. He spent something like 500,000 crowns upon his headgear, and Sixtus w. and Innocent VIII. both found it useful for their respective requirements.
 7 Tiaras were portable securities. Agostino Chigi, the banker, lent Julius H. a very substantial sum on his, and the conclave of 1855, which elected Paul w., sold stock tiara out and out. The stock. notwithstanding, seems to have been considerable. Clement VII, before the sack of Rome in 1527, kept Benvenu- to Cellini busy breaking up the contents Df the Sacrarium as a precautionary measure. Yet Plus VI. found half dozen tiaras still remaining and spent million crowns upon their moderniza- lion. few years later the treaty of Tolentino had deprived him of them all.
 Bonaparte had agreed to accept a part of the 30,000,000 francs which he had imposed as war contribution in valuable property of this kind. By and by, on May IA, 1797, he was com blaming to the directory that he had got too much of it-S S,000000 in pre- cious stones, and not sou of ready money for his army. His holiness was obliged to buy back some of his prop erty for cash down. A loan was raised from certain bankers at Geneva. The directory got wind of this and simpli- fed the proceedings by annexing the loan right away >N
 The holy see temporarily recovered portion of its effects in 1805. Out of the tiaras that went to Tolentino the emperor had one made for Plus VII. to crown him in. But when that un- fortunate pontiff was arrested and lm- prisoned his tiara was promptly taken away from him and relegated to the imperial treasury It did not get to Rome till 1915. When it was made the pope had been reduced to the neces- sity of wearing tiara of covered card board, setwith imitation gems. It was, at any rate, light and easy to wear and as such commended itself to his suc- cessors on occasions of minor impor- tance. Gregory XVI. replaced 1t by something less theatrical and more 1 artistic and Pic Mono by something quite as light and more imposing In 1855, however, Queen Isabella of Spain presented him with magnifi- cent tiara in diamonds. And in 1888, when the late pope celebrated his sacerdotal jubilee, the faithful of Paris made him an offering of chef d'oeuvre of Froment-Meurice, in the shape of 1 a triregno which has now become his toric. ,.t@