Napoleon Tiara

While lavishly decorated with jewels, it was deliberately too small and heavy to be worn and meant as an insult to the Pope.

On a central structure of white velvet there are three crowns of gold, each consisting of a large hoop surmounted with flower-work of wrought leaves, enriched with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires and surrounded with brilliants on a setting of matched and chosen pearls.

At his coronation, Napoleon promised to send the Pope an altar, two ornate ceremonial coaches, and a tiara.

Some of the jewels and decoration for this tiara came from earlier tiaras smashed and stolen by the troops of the French Directory in 1798, when General Louis-Alexandre Berthier invaded Rome, established the Roman Republic, abolished the Papal States, and exiled Pope Pius VI.

His successor, Pope Pius VII, elected in exile in Venice, had to use an improvised papier-mâché tiara for his coronation in 1800.

[1] With the exception of the emerald and eight rubies in the monde,[6] Pope Benedict XV had the tiara's jewels removed and replaced by replicas made of coloured glass.