1 Cavallo - Ferdinando I Napoli mint

Ferdinando I — known as Ferrante — obtained the Neapolitan throne only after his father Alfonso V of Aragon bypassed the Pope's feudal authority and bequeathed the kingdom to him directly, a legitimacy dispute that dogged the entire reign. The cavallo, introduced as part of Ferrante's copper coinage reform, takes its name from the horse depicted on it — an explicit dynastic reference to Aragonese power in southern Italy.

Ferrante's reign of thirty-six years was punctuated by the Barons' Conspiracy of 1485–86, after which he reportedly imprisoned and executed the rebel nobles while continuing to display their embalmed corpses. Coins from the later part of his reign circulated through a kingdom still absorbing that political trauma.