Korwin is a Polish coat of arms. It was used by several szlachta families in the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and by the Russian Counts Korwin-Litwicki tracing their origin back to Empress Catherine the Great History For some reason, an old Polish chivalry clan from Sarmatian breeding, chose raven as his symbol. Perhaps it was their totem symbol because those clans, then pagans, were more ancients than the christening of Poland and the rise of the Kingdom of Piast Dynasty. Many centuries later, we know about it from a grant of privilege to Wawrzęta (or Wawrzyniec - Lawrence) Korwin z Ślepowrony from Duke Konrad I of Masovia, at Warsaw in 1224, according to Jan Długosz, Bartholomew Paprocki, Count Juliusz Ostrowski, etc. The authors understand the Korwin "proper" actual drawing came to Poland from Hungary, more or less two centuries later. The so-called Roman-Hungarian legend of Korwin starts in the 16th century under the influence of Renaissance humanism culture and vivacious contacts between Polish nobility and Hungarian Royal Court. In that kingdom, the Wallachian-Hungarian family of Korvin had flourish in 1400, and a baroque legend argues them descending from one of the Roman gens Valerii. At one time there was in Rome a distinguished tribune named Marcus Valerius Corvus, a Roman general who got the agnomen Corvinus in the following manner: In 349BC, the Roman Army moved against the Barbarians, and before the battle began, a warrior of great size and strength came forward and challenged anyone in the Roman cavalry to single combat, whereupon Valerius stepped forward. Just as he was about to engage the barbarian, a raven flew from a trunk, perched upon Valerius's helmet, and began to attack his foe’s eyes with its beak so fiercely that the warrior was blind. With this, the Roman beat him easily, and from that time, Valerius was called Corvinus (from Corvus, "raven"). His descendant, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (64BC – 8AD) was chosen to the Roman consulate with Caesar Augustus and the Baroque authors understand he became a big landowner in the Dacian-Panonnian frontiers. If however any of his supposed Hungarians descendants, and a Polish branch of this family carried on the name, nobody really knows… It is true that Janos Hunyadi and his son Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi, King of Hungary and anti-king of Bohemia, called themselves "Corvinus" and had their coins minted displaying a “raven with a ring”. The