1 Testone - Ercole II

Ercole II d'Este died in October 1559, making this among the final issues of his reign — possibly struck in the months immediately before his death or as a posthumous release clearing the Ferrara mint's prepared dies. His tenure had been defined largely by careful neutrality between the Habsburgs and France, a position that kept Ferrara solvent but cost him political relevance. The testone denomination itself had been the workhorse of northern Italian trade silver since the late fifteenth century, and the Ferrarese issues under the Este were never minted in the quantities that Milan or Venice produced.