The Peace of Passau of 1552 secured the rights of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire, effectively forcing Ferdinand I to recognize a confessional division that the Diet had refused to formalize for decades. Strasbourg, a free imperial city with deep Reformed sympathies, had particular reason to commemorate the centenary. This piece is a silver pattern struck to the ducat weight standard — a deliberate choice, translating a gold denomination into silver for presentation or documentary purposes rather than circulation.
The Whiting collection reference places it within a well-documented series of such trial or pattern pieces from Germanic civic mints of the mid-seventeenth century.
The Peace of Passau of 1552 secured the rights of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire, effectively forcing Ferdinand I to recognize a confessional division that the Diet had refused to formalize for decades. Strasbourg, a free imperial city with deep Reformed sympathies, had particular reason to commemorate the centenary. This piece is a silver pattern struck to the ducat weight standard — a deliberate choice, translating a gold denomination into silver for presentation or documentary purposes rather than circulation.
The Whiting collection reference places it within a well-documented series of such trial or pattern pieces from Germanic civic mints of the mid-seventeenth century.