1 Augustalis - Federico II Messina

Frederick II introduced the augustalis around 1231 — the first gold coin struck in the Latin West since the Carolingian period — as a deliberate assertion of imperial authority modeled on ancient Roman coinage. The choice of Messina as one of the two authorized mints (alongside Brindisi) was strategic: Sicily's Norman administrative infrastructure made it the most capable production center in his realm.

The name itself references Augustus, a title Frederick wore with genuine ideological weight. He had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1220 and spent the following decades in near-constant conflict with the papacy, and the coin's unapologetically classical character was partly a political statement directed at Rome.