1/2 Ducato

Philip II inherited Naples from his father Charles V in 1554, and this half ducato belongs to the earliest phase of his Neapolitan coinage — struck before he had consolidated the visual grammar of his sprawling inheritance across Spain, the Low Countries, and Italy. Naples at this moment was financially exhausted from decades of Habsburg military campaigning in the peninsula, with the mint operating under pressure to produce heavy silver for troop payments rather than prestige issues.

MIR 159 is scarce in any grade. The three-year window closes with Philip's monetary reorganization of 1556.