For centuries, no, for millennia, human faces were the most popular choice for the decoration of a coin obverse. That the coin’s reverse can be just as fascinating will be shown in this episode of our series.
Why was the human head the motif on coins for centuries, no, for millennia? And why did that change in the last 200 years? In this episode, King Francis I makes a politically necessary decision, which earns him the title “Traitor of Christendom”.
That Henry VIII had an entire collection of wives in his lifetime is not news. But can you remember all of them? In this episode of “Human faces”, we will tell the story of his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
Possessing colonies with vast resources of silver, Spanish king Philip II could have helped his kingdom to enormous economic prosperity. But even the largest treasure of silver could not realise Philip’s power-hungry fantasy of proselytizing half of Europe.
“The Virgin Queen” is certainly the most well-known epithet of Elizabeth I. We thought, however, that “Queen of the Pirates” would be equally befitting as English privateers belong to Elizabeth’s story just as much as her virginity.
In our series “Expeditions into the realm of numismatics”, we are taking you along on an expedition to the treasures of the Basel Coin Cabinet. In the second part, the mystery of a Hercules medal with a particularly high relief often attributed to the Paduan medallist Giovanni da Calvino will be solved.
Why was the human head the motif on coins for centuries, no, for millennia? And why did that change in the last 200 years? Find out why the Houses of Anjou and Aragón fought for Sicily and how Ferdinand of Aragón cleverly used coins for propagandistic purposes in this episode.
That reality and depictions of reality are two different things is a lesson we already learnt in the episode on Constantine the Great. On this coin, the image of the Doge in his pompous attire belies a reality in which he hardly holds any power anymore.
Why was the human head the motif on coins for centuries, no, for millennia? And why did that change in the last 200 years? In today’s episode, we’ll tell you the story of an Italian prince who admired Hercules so much that he named his son after him.
From dishwasher to millionaire, or: from mercenary to Duke of Milan. Francesco Sforza did the impossible and founded one of the most influential families in Renaissance Italy.
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