
In 1477, one of the first accounts recorded by the use of diamond was found in a compromise. Eager to please his future father in law, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria proposed to Mary of Burgundy, with attention to the words of a trusted advisor who wrote: "In the betrothal of his grace should have a ring with a diamond a gold ring. "
Maximilian married his beloved Mary, within 24 hours of the betrothal ceremony. Thus began a tradition that has lasted centuries. At the time of Mary and Maximilian, goldsmiths often used thin, flat pieces of diamond called "hohback diamonds that had" split "(division) of a natural diamond crystal.