1 Ducat - Antonio Maria Tizzone

Desana was among the smallest feudal entities in the Po Valley — a county of negligible territory wedged between Vercelli and Casale — yet it retained the right to strike gold coinage through the sufferance of Spanish imperial overlordship of Milan. Antonio Maria Tizzone ruled during the Thirty Years' War, a period when northern Italy was repeatedly crossed by armies, and small lordships like Desana were economically strangled by forced billeting, requisition, and the collapse of regional trade routes.

The county's mint output was always limited, which accounts for the rarity of these ducats today. Fr#247 is among the more elusive entries in Friedberg's Italian section.