The most famous silver coin, the matapan, was first struck in the brilliant time of Enrico Dandolo (1192–1205). This coin is a grossus weighing about 33 grains, with on the obverse St Mark giving the standard or gonfalon to the doge, both figures standing, and on the reverse the seated figure of the Saviour. The famous Venetian zecchino or sequin (see Pl. III. fig. 9), the rival of the florin of Florence, appears to have been first issued under Giovanni Dandolo (1284). On the obverse St Mark gives the gonfalon to the kneeling doge, and on the reverse is a standing figure of the Saviour within an oval nimbus. Niccolo Trono (1471–1473) introduces his portrait on most of his coins, but this custom is not continued. By the latest part of the 15th century large silver coins appear. The archaic style changes in the beginning of the 16th century, but there is no later movement. The large silver pieces increase in size, and large gold is also struck; the last doge, Ludovico Manin (1788–1797), issued the 100-sequin piece in gold, a monstrous coin, worth over £40. The doges of Venice from 1521 to 1797 issued a peculiar silver token or medallet, the osella, five of which they annually presented to every member of the Great Council. They replaced the wild ducks (uccelle) which it had been customary to present at Christmas. Two dogaressas struck similar medallets. Their types are usually allegorical; some are commemorative.
The series of the coins of Rome is rather of historical than of artistic merit. The popes begin to strike money with Adrian I. (A.D. 772–795), whose deniers are in a Byzantino-Lombard style. The coins of his successors, with few exceptions, down to Leo IX. (1049) associate the names of pope and emperor. From Leo IX. to Urban V. (1362) Papal Coins. there is no papal coinage at Rome. The Roman senate strikes from 1188 onwards. We then see on the silver the style of the senate and Roman people, and ROMA CAPUT MUNDI. Some coins have the figures of St Paul and St Peter, others Rome seated and a lion. Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily (1263–1285), strikes as a senator, and Cola di Rienzo (1347–1348) as tribune. The gold ducat of about 1300 imitates the types of the Venetian sequin. St Peter here gives the gonfalon to a kneeling senator. The arms of the moneying senator next appear in the field. The papal coinage is resumed at Avignon; and Urban V., on his return to Rome, takes the sole right of the mint. From Martin V. (1417) to Pius IX. there is a continuous papal coinage. The later coins, though they have an interest from their bearing on the history of art, are disappointing in style. There is indeed a silver coin of Julius II. struck at Bologna and attributed to Francia, with a very fine portrait. We have beautiful gold coins of Giovanni Bentivoglio (see Pl. III. fig. 23), lord of Bologna, who employed Francia at his mint, and we know that the artist remained at his post after Julius II. had taken the city. There are also pieces of Clement VII. by Cellini, vigorous in design but careless in execution. There were papal mints at Ancona, Bologna, Piacenza, Parma, Ferrara and other Italian towns; and coins were also struck at Avignon from 1342 to 1700. The papal portraits are highly characteristic and interesting. It is, however, in the fine series of papal medals that we find a worthier artistic record.
The coinage of Sicily, afterwards that of the Two Sicilies, or Naples and Sicily, begins with the Normans. Theirs is a curiously mixed series. It begins with Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia (1075) and Roger I. of Sicily (1072). The gold money is almost wholly Arabic, though Roger II. struck the Latin ducat, the earliest of its class; the silver is Arabic, Sicily. except the great Latin scyphati of Roger II. with Roger III.; the copper is both Latin and Arabic. The gold series (Augustales) of the emperor Frederick II. (1198–1250) shows the first sentiment of reviving classical art, its work being far in advance of the age. These are Latin coins; he also struck small Arabic pieces in gold. Under Conrad and Manfred there is an insignificant coinage, copper only, but with CharlesS I. of Anjou (1266–1285) the gold money in purely medieval style is very beautiful, quite equal to that of his brother, St Louis of France. After this time there is a great issue of gigliati, silver coins with, for reverse, a cross fleurdelisée cantoned with fleurs-de-lis. These coins acquired a great reputation in the Levant, and were even struck by the emirs of Asia Minor. With Alphonso, the founder of the Aragonese line, we note the old style of the coins, which are in singular contrast to his fine medals. Good portraiture begins on the money of Ferdinand I., his successor. The later coinage is interesting only for its illustration of the varying fortunes of the Two Sicilies, The curious early gold coinage of the Lombard dukes of Beneventum, which follows the Byzantine type, has been mentioned under the transitional series; the dukes and princes of Beneventum and the princes of Salerno continued to issue coins (sometimes gold, usually deniers) down to the middle of the 11th century.
Italian medals (Pl. VI.) are next in merit to the works of the Greek die-engravers. Certain small pieces of a medallic character were made in Italy, at Padua, as early as the end of the 14th century, and there existed also large cast and chased pieces representing various Roman emperors (perhaps Burgundian work of the 14th century), which influenced Italian Medals. the beginnings of the true medal. This began, and also reached its highest excellence, with Vittore Pisano (Pisanello), the Veronese painter, whose medals date from 1438 (or earlier) to 1449. The finest work of Italian medallists is seen in the cast medals of the 15th and early 16th century; with the increase of classicism in the 16th the style declines rapidly. The earlier medals are independent works, marked by simple vigorous truthfulness. The designs are skilful and the portraits strongly characteristic; the expression of character and virtù takes precedence over ideal beauty, especially in the work of the Florentine school. As the art became popular the execution of medals passed into the hands of inferior artists, and by degrees striking became usual for the smaller pieces; at the same time, a slavish imitation of the classical style weakened or destroyed originality and stamped the works with the feebleness of copies. The great medallists of the first age are Pisano, Matteo de’ Pasti, Enzola, Boldù, Sperandio, Guazzalotti, Bertoldo, Gambello, Niccolò Fiorentino, Lysippus, Candida, Caradosso. Some of the most beautiful medals, however, are by unknown artists (Pl. VI. fig. 2). In the 16th century must be mentioned Pomedello, Benvenuto Cellini, Leone Leoni, Giovanni Cavino “the Paduan,” Pastorino of Siena, Giacomo da Trezzo, Pietro Paolo Galeotto, called Romano, and Antonio Abondio. Incomparably the finest of all Italian medals are the works of Pisano, particularly the medals of Alphonso the Magnanimous, with the reverses of the boar-hunt and the eagle and lesser birds of prey, those of Sigismondo Malatesta, his brother surnamed Novello (see Pl. VI. fig. 1), Leonello d’Este, John VIII. (Palaeologus), Nicolò Piccinino, Inigo d’Avalos (marquis of Pescara), Ludovico and Cecilia Gonzaga of the same family, the great humanists Vittorino da Feltre and Pier Candido Decembrio. Pisano is great in portraiture, great in composition and design, and marvellously skilful in depicting animals. He alone represents the moral qualities of his subject in their highest expression and even capability. That he has high ideal power is seen at once if we compare with his portrait Pasti’s inferior though powerful head of Sigismondo Malatesta. Pasti’s medal of Isotta, wife of Sigismondo, is also noteworthy, likewise the medal by the otherwise unknown Constantius of Mahomet II., the conqueror of Constantinople—interesting works, but lacking Pisano’s technical skill and inspiration. An artist of great power is Sperandio of Mantua; but his productions lack the finish necessary to good medallic work, his drawing and composition are careless, and his realism too often becomes brutal or vulgar. The work of Niccolò Fiorentino and of his pupils is astonishingly vigorous in portraiture, but they lack the power of designing reverses (see Pl. VI. fig. 3). In the later age Cavino executed a remarkable series of imitations of Roman sestertii, which have been frequently mistaken for originals. In art these Italian works frequently surpass the originals in spite of a degree of weakness inseparable from copies. A comparison of the Italian with the Roman pieces is thus most instructive. The works of Pastorino of Siena (who had an extraordinary facility in graceful portraiture) are especially charming (see Pl. VI. fig. 4). Historically the Italian
