By 1565, Cosimo I was Duke of Florence and had been for nearly three decades, yet Florence was still nominally issuing coinage under the fiction of republican authority — a legal convenience Cosimo exploited until Pope Pius V granted him the title Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569. This testone sits in that narrow window when the political reality and the coin's attribution were quietly at odds.
The MIR 150/1 variety is among the more precisely documented of Cosimo's silver issues, with CNI XII placing it firmly within the 1565–66 emission based on die linkage.
By 1565, Cosimo I was Duke of Florence and had been for nearly three decades, yet Florence was still nominally issuing coinage under the fiction of republican authority — a legal convenience Cosimo exploited until Pope Pius V granted him the title Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569. This testone sits in that narrow window when the political reality and the coin's attribution were quietly at odds.
The MIR 150/1 variety is among the more precisely documented of Cosimo's silver issues, with CNI XII placing it firmly within the 1565–66 emission based on die linkage.