1/8 Klippe Thaler - Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau 1/8

Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau ruled Salzburg from 1587 until his forced abdication in 1612, when his cousin Markus Sittikus had him arrested and imprisoned in the Hohensalzburg fortress — where he died five years later, never released. The klippe format, with its square or polygonal flan, was not merely decorative; it served as a deliberate assertion of princely prestige by ecclesiastical mints competing for the attention of wealthy patrons and the imperial court. Salzburg's silver supply from the nearby Gastein and Rauris valleys gave its archbishops unusual monetary independence for a church territory.