(ANSA) - ROME, DECEMBER 04 - St Edward's Crown, the official emblem of the British monarchy, was taken from the Tower of London, where it is kept as the central piece of the Crown Jewels, and is in the works to modify the diameter and adapt it to the head of King Charles III, in view of the coronation ceremony, scheduled for 6 May next year in Westminster Abbey, eight months after the succession to the throne which took place on the death of Elizabeth II.
Buckingham Palace made it known, quoted by the BBC.
The present crown was made in 1661 for King Charles II Stuart, after the original, which is believed to date back to King Edward the Confessor (St Edward, 1003-1066), one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings before the unification of England under the dynasty norman.
But it was very different in shape and was cast in the short period of the Republic and the Civil War following the beheading of King Charles I in 1649.
The seventeenth-century crown, whose image surmounts the British royal emblem, that of the Royal Mail and the armed forces, is tall 30 centimeters, 66 wide and weighs 2.23 kilos.
It is composed of a base with four lilies alternating with four crosses, above which the arches surmount a globe with a large cross.
Inside is a velvet cap trimmed with ermine.
It is made of 22 carat gold, with 444 hard stones: 345 aquamarine beryls, 37 white topaz, 27 tourmaline, 12 ruby, 7 amethyst, 6 sapphire, 2 zircon, 1 garnet, a spinel and an almandine.
Carlo announced his intention to be at the center of a shorter coronation ceremony than that of his mother, but keeping the central elements of a tradition that has been perpetuated for over a thousand years, including the coronation of the Queen consort Camilla.
The guests should have been reduced by a quarter, to about 2,000 compared to the 8,000 who attended the three-hour ceremony for Elizabeth in 1953.
(ANSA).