Lodewyk van Berken

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Lodewyk van Berken was a mid- to late-15th century Flemish jeweller and diamond cutter, renowned in the industry for inventing the scaif. The device revolutionized the diamond cutting industry and contributed to increased popularity of diamonds.

Van Berken was born into a Jewish family in Bruges. His place of work was in Antwerp, where in 1456 he invented the scaif,^[1] a polishing wheel infused with a mixture of olive oil and diamond dust. With the scaif, it became possible to polish all the facets of the diamond symmetrically at angles that best reflected the light.

Charles the Bald became the patron of van Berken and in the 1470s commissioned him to cut a 137-carat stone that later became known as the Florentine Diamond.

[edit] Legacy

Since the time of van Berken's invention, diamond cutting has become one of the traditional Jewish crafts. A bronze statue of van Berken, holding a diamond in his hand, stands in Antwerp's diamond district.