This gold double ducat from c.1475 depicts Gian Galeazzo Maria Sforza. In name – and in name only – the youth was Duke of Milan as he was under constant guardianship until his early death. What remains are coins minted for him depicting splendid Renaissance portraits.
Today’s coin is of the type of a Venetian ducat, a so-called zecchino. This gold specimen from around 1350 shows the doge, the head of state of Venice, receiving a banner by St Mark, the city’s patron saint.
In the 11th century, Kloster Allerheiligen (All Saints Abbey) in Schaffhausen was granted the right to mint coins. Take a look at this 13th-century bracteate and decide for yourself what you see: a ram, as an allusion to the town’s name, or a Lamb of God?
Matapan is the Arabic term for the enthroned Christ on the reverse of a heavy Venetian silver coin introduced around 1200. Today, however, you will put together the obverses’ motif: St Mark who presents the banner to the head of state.
As a sign of their power, the abbesses of the Fraumünster in Zurich had the right to mint coins. But by the time they decided to depict themselves on their issues, as on this late 13th-century pfennig, they had already had to surrender much of their power to the citizens of the town.
The tornesel, a heavy silver coin which was created in Tours (France) in 1266, was so popular that it was imitated in many places. John II from the Duchy of Brabant also did so around 1300: do you recognize the cityscape of Tours in the lily wreath?
This isn’t an Arab gold dinar. Pay attention to the cross and the abbreviation ALF: this coin was minted in the 12th century by Alfonso VIII, the Christian ruler of Castile. Maravedí was the currency used by Christians and Moors to conduct trade.
Under Charlemagne, the Frankish Empire reached its greatest expansion around 800 and experienced the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne also reformed the monetary system – today you can try your hand at a denarius featuring the ruler’s monogram.
This solidus of Arcadius was minted in AD 395. Arcadius’ father Theodosius had just died. His brother Honorius administered the western part of the empire from Rome, and he himself administered the east from Constantinople. The beginning of the Byzantine Empire!
This time we have a so-called half siliqua of Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths. He ruled over Italy from AD 493 to 526, with the favour of the powerful Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I. That’s why we see the portrait of Anastasius on the obverse.
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