1 Scudo d`oro - Antonio Maria Tizzone

Desana was a minuscule imperial fief in the Po Valley, and the Tizzone family's right to strike gold was perpetually contested — the county's coinage authority rested on old imperial grants that larger neighboring powers, Savoy chief among them, regarded with open skepticism. Antonio Maria Tizzone ruled from 1630 to 1641, a period bracketed by the plague of 1630 that devastated Piedmont and Lombardy, killing perhaps a third of the regional population and collapsing local commerce. That any gold was struck here at all during those years is notable.