The Missing Diamond in Case XIII

The Florentine Diamond was one of the crown jewels (sorry) of the Habsburgs—a 137-carat diamond that had come from the court of the Duke of Tuscany. But after World War I, when the Austrian Empire collapsed, the royal family fled to Switzerland, taking the diamond with them. From there, it disappeared. Or did it? Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840578/anatomyalovestory and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story' https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250861016/immortalityalovestory See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 1:35Speaker 04

  Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Listener discretion advised. The empire was collapsing around him, but Count Leopold Berktold had a job to do. It was November 1st, 1918, the tail end of World War I and the end of the Austrian Empire. The emperor, Charles I, knew that his days were numbered, and that he and his family needed to leave the country as soon as possible. And so he had sent Count Leopold, the Lord Chamberlain, down to the Imperial Treasury.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  The display of crown jewels was staggeringly impressive. This is the Habsburg dynasty, for goodness sake. The display cases boasted glittering crowns, dripping pearls, and diamonds so large that they look fake. There were jewelry sets that had belonged to some of the most famous women in history: Empress Maria Theresa, Empress Elizabeth, Marie Antoinette, and the, forgive me, crown jewel of the collection was genuinely staggering. The Florentine Diamond, a stunning 137-karat stone with a centuries-long pedigree.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  With the future breathing down his neck, Count Leopold emptied the display case numbered 13, wrapping the priceless jewels in paper and packing them into two bags. That very night, the Count boarded a train for Switzerland, where the Emperor Charles, his wife Zeta, and their family would begin their exile. Fifty-three jewelry pieces were taken out of Austria. Fourteen of those were from the Empress Zeta's private collection, while the rest were historical treasures that belonged to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynastic household.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  But the question of who most of those jewels actually belonged to turned out to be a slightly complicated one. After all, technically, the crown jewels of an empire aren't really the private property of each individual reigning monarch. They belong to the country itself. And that's certainly an argument that the New Austrian Republic would try to make, arguing at different points over the next century that the jewels had been removed illegally, even though at the time the imperial family had catalogued them as their personal possessions.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  The display case 13 would be left empty in the Royal Treasury, a reminder of the treasures that had been taken. But you can't argue about who owns something that nobody can find. Because after 1918, the Florentine Diamond disappeared. Vanished with no record. Was it lost? Sold? Stolen? The most pragmatic theory is that it was cut into smaller, still probably jaw-droppingly huge diamonds and sold off piecemeal.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Some people imagined that a servant had stolen the jewels away to South America. But the mystery of the missing Florentine Diamond would go on to inspire novels and operas, captivating writers and creatives, all imagining how a historic 137-karat diamond might have disappeared without a trace. In the end, it would take more than 100 years, but the Florentine Diamond would be found in a place that nobody had expected. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  The Florentine Diamond is a genuinely stunning stone. As I mentioned, it's massive, but it's also a unique and captivating color. It's yellowish, slightly golden, once described as "wine mixed tenfold with water." Its documented history begins in the 17th century with a Medici in Florence, but there are a number of stories attempting to trace its earlier provenance. According to one story, the original stone was cut for Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, who had been allegedly wearing it when he fought in the Battle of Nancy in 1477.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Spoiler alert for a centuries-old battle, but things did not go well for Charles. Clearly, if he did have the precursor to the Florentine Diamond, it wasn't a good luck charm. Charles and his men were brutally defeated, and Charles was killed on the battlefield, although his mutilated body wasn't actually found until two days later. As the story goes, a scavenger had, by that point, already plucked the diamond off his body in the dirt, and, thinking that the stone must have just been cut glass, sold it for two francs, to somebody who had all of the luck that Charles the Bold didn't.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  The stone then eventually was sold to Ludovico Sforza, and then by way of the prominent Fugger family, eventually became a treasure of the Medici, with a pit stop in the collection of Pope Julius II along the way. An alternate version of the history of the diamond, if it hadn't been fighting in the Burgundian Wars, is that instead of France, it had been over in southern India, and in the 1500s, it was purchased from the King of Vijayanagar by the Portuguese governor of Goa, who then deposited the diamond with Jesuits in Rome, until it was eventually

• 7:48Speaker 04

  purchased by Ferdinando I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Ferdinando I gave the massive stone to his son Cosimo, who commissioned a Venetian gem cutter working in Florence to refine it. However it got there, we know that here with Ferdinando and Cosimo is where the confirmed journey of our stone really begins, hence its name, the Florentine Diamond. When Cosimo died, the records describe the massive diamond surrounded by a band of smaller diamonds as a gift from his late father. Cosimo would eventually gift the stone to his own son, Ferdinando II.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  He was the owner of the diamond when it was described by a French traveler and jeweler named Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who saw the stone with his own eyes in 1657.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  But the diamond would leave Florence eventually. Dynastic families fall, but diamonds are forever. And the last of the male Medici heirs died in 1737. The diamond then went to the next grand duke of Tuscany, the French Duke Francis III Stephen of Lorraine, and his wife Maria Theresa of Austria. They were the founders of the massive Habsburg-Lorraine Dynasty, possibly most famous to most audiences as the parents of Marie Antoinette. And with them, the diamond made its way to the Austrian treasury.

• 9:24Speaker 04

  Francis Stephen wore it in his crown when he became the Holy Roman Emperor. The diamond would eventually be given a new setting, in a hategret, or an ornament meant to stick out of a hat like a feather. I imagine a very, very heavy feather. In 1865, the head of the Imperial and Royal Court Mineral Cabinet weighed and recorded the stone. And it remained with the Habsburg-Lorraine Dynasty in the Imperial Treasury of the Austrian Empire until the collapse of the empire itself. Speeding forward just a little bit, Charles I was actually an unlikely emperor.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  His great-uncle was the emperor before him, and the next in line to the throne was his great-uncle's son, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Maybe you've heard of him. Controversially, Franz Ferdinand had married for love to a woman of scandalously low rank. And so their union was only allowed on the condition that it be a morganatic marriage, meaning that any of their descendants forfeited the right to the throne. And so Franz Ferdinand would be next in line, but after him would be Franz's nephew, Charles, who had married the perfectly respectable Princess Zita of Bourbon Parma.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  Zeta's pedigree was stellar. Her mother was the daughter of the King of Portugal, and her father was the Duke of Parma and also a direct descendant of King Charles X of France. Although just as her husband would eventually lose his throne, Zeta's father lost his duchy too, before Zeta was born, back when the duchy was annexed during the unification of Italy. But Franz Ferdinand was in perfectly good health, and Charles and Zeta didn't expect that they would be coming emperor and empress anytime soon. That changed when Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shockingly assassinated in 1914.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  And then the then-Emperor Franz Joseph died at the age of 86 in 1916. World War I erupted over Europe, and Charles and Zeta would be the final emperor and empress of Austria. At the end of World War I, when Charles and his wife were ousted from Austria, Charles was very careful not to use the word "abdicate" in his statement. He still believed he was the rightful emperor of Austria, even though he acknowledged that the people now had the right to choose for themselves what sort of government they wanted. Well, the Austrian parliament spoke, and on April 3, 1919,

• 12:19Speaker 04

  they passed the Habsburg Law, officially banishing the family, barring Charles from ever returning to the country and barring his male descendants from Austria as well, unless they renounced all intentions of reclaiming the throne. The law also confiscated all of the remaining property of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine that remained in Austria. Incidentally, in 1935, that law would be repealed, and the family would technically be given back its property. But then, the Nazis would reintroduce the law in 1938. The law would then stay in place, with the Habsburg heirs banned,

• 13:00Speaker 04

  until 1995, when Austria was required to repeal parts of it before joining the European Union, because some of the law violated international law. But of course, Charles and his family didn't know about that entire saga to come. At this point, they were in Switzerland, in exile, heirs to a defunct empire. In addition to being the, now former, Emperor of Austria, Charles had also been the King of Hungary, and he attempted multiple times to reclaim that throne, all unsuccessfully. After his second failed attempt, Charles and Zida were arrested.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  They were only able to make it safely to another exile, thanks to the intervention of King George V in England, who, no doubt, was still incredibly shaken up by the brutal murders of his cousins, the Romanovs, in Russia, and wanted to prevent any other royal heads from rolling. George V provided a military escort to bring Charles and Zida safely to the very fortified and isolated Portuguese island of Madeira. Their children joined them soon after. Charles would die on the island, of a cold that developed into pneumonia. Zida, who at that time was pregnant with their eighth child,

• 14:28Speaker 04

  was present at her husband's bedside when he passed away at age 34.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Zida, just 29 years old, was now widowed with almost eight children. Alfonso XIII of Spain allowed her and her family to come to Spain, and so she settled in the Palace of Urubaren on the Bay of Biscay, where she lived on limited finances for the next six years, while educating her, by this point, eight children at home. Eventually, the family moved to Belgium in order to be closer to some Habsburg cousins. But any semblance of comfort, or the promise of any restored future, was cut short in 1940, when Belgium was invaded by the Nazis.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Zida's son Otto was declared an enemy of the state by the Nazis because he had tried to help the Austrian Republic resist the Third Reich. Their castle was hit by German bombers, and the family managed to flee, first to France, then to the Spanish border. Because Zida of Bourbon Parma was directly descended from Portuguese citizens, they were able to get Portuguese passports. But they wouldn't find safety in Portugal either. The ruler of Portugal informed Zida's son that Hitler had demanded his extradition. It was the United States who would help them this time, offering them visas and allowing the family to arrive via ship to New York City.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Eventually, they all settled in Quebec, which was fairly convenient seeing as everyone in the family spoke French and the younger children didn't actually know English yet. That was where they stayed for years, living in Quebec, with Zida never remarrying. And they stayed there until 1952, when Zida moved to Luxembourg to look after her own mother, who was still astonishingly alive in her 90s. A Swiss bishop offered Zida use of a residence that he managed, where she would stay for the rest of her life, entertaining her massive family at the manor house and praying at a nearby chapel.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Zida was allowed to return to Austria for the first time in 60 years, in 1982. A woman who had been born into royalty and seen the remnants of dynasty torn down around her in real time. Zita died in 1989 at age 96, and the secret of what happened to the priceless diamond that had once been in her possession died with her—or so we thought. On November 6, 2025, The New York Times announced that the Florentine Diamond had been found.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Well, not actually "found," because something can't be found if it was never lost in the first place. Turns out, the diamond wasn't lost, or stolen—or, as pragmatic people had assumed, recut and sold. Zita had kept the Florentine Diamond safe the entire time and told only two people—her sons, Robert and Rudolph—that she had it. She made them promise to keep the location of the diamond secret for 100 years after her husband Charles's death.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  It wasn't until 2025 that Robert and Rudolph's sons—the 70-year-old Lorenz von Hapsburg-Lothringen and the 67-year-old Simeon von Hapsburg-Lothringen, respectively—told their cousin, Karl von Hapsburg-Lothringen, who spoke in an interview with The Times. A Times reporter was with the family in the bank vault in Canada, where he opened an old suitcase and unveiled the mythic Florentine Diamond—the first time any of the cousins had actually seen the stone in person.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Since at least 1953, the stone had been left in the Quebec bank vault by Zita—not sold, not cut up, not bargained with. Despite the fact that Zita and her family had been pulled ragged through Europe, and their finances had been, at times, very meager, she held on to what she believed to be an important piece of her family's history: keeping it intact, even if that meant keeping it secret. And she did. That's the story of the Florentine Diamond, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about what's going to happen to the diamond now.

• 19:33Speaker 02

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• 20:03Dana Schwartz?

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• 20:48Dana Schwartz?

  to beautiful 14-karat jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch and might make an excellent holiday present. Quince also doesn't just do clothes. My work bag, my leather bag that I bring every day with me to work is from Quince, and I absolutely love it. It goes with everything I wear, and it's just like a classic that makes me feel sophisticated and grown up. And everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories, cutting out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality and not brand markup. Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at quince.com.

• 21:29Dana Schwartz?

  Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was noble blood. It is the best way to support this show. Honestly, because I just want the Quince sponsorship to continue so I can keep buying Quince clothes and products over and over again. Cleopatra was one of the most famous rulers in history. And somehow, her tomb has never been found. Not the tomb, not the body.

• 22:11Dana Schwartz?

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• 22:54Dana Schwartz?

  The Loch Ness Monster, the science, the hoax, and why the legend won't die. She digs into the evidence and tells you what she thinks really happened. Listen to Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt every Monday. Follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. That's Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt.

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• 23:49Dana Schwartz?

  You know all those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? You know, the sweater that works with every outfit you try on and the jeans that you know will always fit you just right? Or the bag you carry everywhere? Those are the exact pieces that earn a place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe.

• 24:29Dana Schwartz?

  From warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14-karat jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch and might make an excellent holiday present. Quince also doesn't just do clothes. My work bag, my leather bag that I bring every day with me to work is from Quince and I absolutely love it. It goes with everything I wear and it's just like a classic that makes me feel sophisticated and grown up. And everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories, cutting out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality and not brand markup.

• 25:11Dana Schwartz?

  Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at quince.com. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Noble Blood. It is the best way to support this show, honestly, because I just want the Quince sponsorship to continue so I can keep buying Quince clothes and products over and over again. Cleopatra was one of the most famous rulers in history, and somehow, her tomb

• 25:53Dana Schwartz?

  has never been found. Not the tomb, not the body. If you love the strange and unsolved moments from history, you need to meet Dr. Harini Bhatt. She's a clinical pharmacist turned history detective, and on her podcast, Hidden History, she treats the world's greatest mysteries like open case files. Not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Every episode, she reopens the cases history never closed. The Mary Celeste, a ship found sailing the Atlantic with no one aboard. The Voynich

• 26:36Dana Schwartz?

  Manuscript, a book no one on Earth has been able to read. The Loch Ness Monster, The Science, The Hoax, and Why the Legend Won't Die. She digs into the evidence and tells you what she thinks really happened. Listen to Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt every Monday. Follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. That's Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt. As I alluded to earlier in the episode, it's a bit of a legal airball whether the Habsburgs had absconded to Switzerland with their own private jewels, or jewels that

• 27:17Dana Schwartz?

  technically belonged to the state. The family maintains that the diamond is theirs. After all, it's been in the family for generations, and when the Habsburg law passed reclaiming all of the Habsburg property in Austria, the jewels were already out of the country. Now, according to the New York Times in December of 2025, the Austrian government has put together a commission to see if they can get to the bottom of whether they do still have any claim to the Florentine Diamond, or the other jewels that had been hidden in the secret Quebec cache. For their part, the family has announced their wishes, that the diamond be displayed

• 27:59Dana Schwartz?

  at a museum in Canada, as thanks for welcoming their family. It seems a win for history lovers that no matter where the diamond ends up, it will be on public display, not sold, not cut up, and no longer hidden.

• 28:25Dana Schwartz?

  Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Giulia Malani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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• 30:09Speaker 07

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• 31:09Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.