Sebastião I was three years old when this coin was struck in his name. Real power rested with his grandmother, the regent Catherine of Austria, who governed Portugal through the opening years of his reign while the king's council debated whether Habsburg influence over the crown had grown dangerously entrenched. The São Vicente denomination had been a fixture of Portuguese gold coinage since Manuel I, but the 'L-G' privy mark combination places this piece precisely within the Lisboa mint's output for 1557–1559 — a narrow window before the coinage was revised.
Sebastião I was three years old when this coin was struck in his name. Real power rested with his grandmother, the regent Catherine of Austria, who governed Portugal through the opening years of his reign while the king's council debated whether Habsburg influence over the crown had grown dangerously entrenched. The São Vicente denomination had been a fixture of Portuguese gold coinage since Manuel I, but the 'L-G' privy mark combination places this piece precisely within the Lisboa mint's output for 1557–1559 — a narrow window before the coinage was revised.