Silicon Valley’s Most Elusive Beast

In Renaissance Europe, a unicorn horn, known as an ”alicorn,” was a must-have accessory for any well-appointed cathedral, monastery or palace. According to Odell Shepard’s ”Lore of the Unicorn,” Queen Elizabeth I kept such a horn in her royal wardrobe. Pope Clement VII had one, too, which he ”richly adorned with gold.” The unicorn was a revered symbol of Christ, and its horn was believed to possess magical properties. The outlandish prices paid for alicorns — usually narwhal tusks — in the 16th and 17th centuries convey a sense of their assumed potency: One horn could be worth more than 10 times its weight in gold, and Queen Elizabeth was said to have one as valuable as a castle.

By ADRIAN CHEN

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