The Crystal Cube is an object that was regarded by the Templars during the Renaissance as critical to their order's future. As its name suggests, it appears to be an almost perfect cube of crystal.
History[]
Around 1506, following the assassination of Sirus Favero, the Master of the Crows, the Assassins Lo Sparviero and Niccolò Machiavelli hurried to the Crows' hideout to search it for secrets before it could be destroyed. Alongside a chest with a small shard, they recovered a painting of the Crystal Cube—referenced in several letters between Sirus and Cesare Borgia—that was hanging from the tip of a Corvix Blade that pinned an eagle carcass to the wall. The painting itself contained a map of Forlì with mysterious markings.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The Crystal Cube is an item is mentioned in Niccolò Machiavelli's account of "Saviors of Roma", the last story mission of Assassin's Creed: Identity's first chapter, where it is described in letters as invaluable "for the future of the Templar Order". In addition, Machiavelli tells of how he and the main protagonist, Lo Sparviero, recovered a painting of the object at the hideout of the main antagonist Sirus Favero, but as the mission ends at the building's entrance and there are no cutscenes in the game, this plot development appears exclusively in this text.
The text strongly suggests that the Crystal Cube is meant to be a major plot device in the future, as though it was intended to be a MacGuffin in subsequent chapters. However, it is never brought up again in any subsequent Assassin's Creed media or in Chapter Two, the only additional part of Identity ever released. The closest objects in other media are the blood vials introduced in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and it is not impossible that the cube is meant to be a blood vial.
Canonicity[]
The plot of Identity's Chapter Two revolves around a modified version of the Battle of Forlì. This is a major anachronism since Chapter One is set at an unspecified time between the Battle of Monteriggioni in 1500 and Cesare Borgia's death in 1507 whereas the Battle of Forlì occurred in 1488.[2][3] The sequence of events in Assassin's Creed II and its immediate sequel, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, are evidently reversed in the second chapter of Identity, rendering it non-canonical. This, alongside numerous other dating anomalies in the game, casts suspicion on the canonicity of the first chapter as well and, by extension, that of the Crystal Cube and the events surrounding it.
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed: Identity (mentioned in Database entry only)
References[]
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