Chemists who burned diamonds: a brief history on understanding diamond's nature

The story of diamond combustion can be interpreted as a collective work, the fruit of the contributions of generations of scholars who, between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, progressively unravelled the nature of this substance. From the magical speculation surrounding it, experimental demonstration of its composition emerged, through the development of chemistry as a quantitative science. Diamond combustion, initially considered an enigmatic phenomenon, proved key to affirming the principle that the crystalline structure can confer extraordinary properties on an elementary substance. This article recounts experiments conducted over more than two centuries, rationalizing in a modern key the chemical reactions occurring in the somewhat obscure processes described by the authors in their historical publications. This analysis highlights the brilliance of chemists, when the atom was still a more or less philosophical concept and molecules had not yet been conceived. With limited tools, but with extraordinary insights, they helped pave the way for modern chemistry.