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1 Doppia - Julius Caesar Gonzaga
| Issuer | Bozzolo (Italian States) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1593-1609 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Quartered heraldic shield of the Gonzaga family, surmounted by an elaborate princely crown, displayed centrally in the field. The quarterings bear the dynastic arms of Gonzaga and Hostalia, with detailed heraldic devices rendered in the hammered style of late sixteenth-century Italian goldsmithing. The shield is flanked and surrounded by ten military flags or banners arranged symmetrically, emblematic of lordship and martial prestige. A circumferential Latin legend reading M D GONZ ET HOST COMES P encircles the composition, denoting the titles of Marquis, Duke, Count of Gonzaga and Hostalia. The outer border is defined by a beaded circle consistent with the obverse. |
| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Julius Caesar Gonzaga ruled the tiny fief of Bozzolo — a enclave in the Po valley barely the size of a market town — as a virtually autonomous lord despite nominal Gonzaga family ties to the larger Mantuan duchy. The right to strike gold coinage was a jealously guarded privilege, and small lordships like Bozzolo exercised it aggressively, partly as a revenue mechanism and partly as an assertion of political standing that their territory alone could never justify.
CNI IV#4 is among the rarer Bozzolo gold attributions, with surviving examples turning up almost exclusively in northern Italian cabinet collections dispersed in the nineteenth century.