Until the sixteenth century, Venice had been Europe's only diamond trading center. During the Italian Renaissance, methods of poisoning also evolved rapidly. Agents of the Republic of Venice would put crushed diamonds into wineglasses; the victims would die of internal bleeding within a week, yet without an autopsy, doctors had no way of knowing how they had been poisoned.
As trade between Venice and Bruges grew, Bruges gradually became a cutting center. But because of the alum issue in the papal territories, Antwerp replaced Bruges as the commercial capital, and also became a center for diamond cutting and trade.
This continued until Columbus discovered the New World. Europe's diamonds mainly came from Golkonda in India, where the Indian Plate and Asian Plate collided violently in the Himalayas, creating diamond deposits. When the Portuguese brought diamonds from Brazil back to Europe, people initially refused to believe they were diamonds. They had no choice but to mix Brazilian diamonds in with those from Golkonda, until people truly accepted that diamonds could be found outside India.
Because of the alum issue, the commercial center shifted from Bruges to Antwerp, but the ensuing Eighty Years' War led to Antwerp being sacked, and diamond merchants relocated to Amsterdam. Then, with the Thirty Years' War and William III of Orange, London ultimately became the international gem trade center.
Peruzzi Bank had once monopolized the sale of British wool in exchange for providing loans to the English king during the Hundred Years' War. But after the king defaulted on his promises, a great many banks collapsed. Their bank in Amsterdam, however, held on. By the seventeenth century, they had entered the diamond trade, and Vincenzo Peruzzi even invented a triple multifaceted cutting technique.
By then, diamond cutting had come to emphasize fire and brilliance, rather than preserving