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1 Thaler - Francesco Fieschi
| Issuer | Masserano |
|---|---|
| Year | 1612-1614 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | Half-length effigy of Francesco Fieschi in three-quarter view facing right, depicted in full plate armor with elaborate gorget and pauldrons. The figure is rendered in a late Renaissance military style with fine surface detail on the cuirass. A circular beaded border frames the design, with the legend distributed around the periphery reading FRANC. FIL. FER(R). FLI. PRINCE. MESSERA., denoting his titles as Prince of Masserano. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Masserano was a tiny Imperial fiefdom in Piedmont, and the Fieschi family's minting activity there was frankly anomalous — a minor lordship producing large-denomination silver on a scale that drew repeated scrutiny from both Savoy and Spanish Milan. Francesco Fieschi held the title Count of Masserano, and the brief window of this issue corresponds to a period of aggressive assertion of comital minting rights that the family had held, somewhat contentiously, since the mid-sixteenth century.
The Fieschi were a Genoese dynasty of considerable reach, and the same clan had earlier produced the conspirator Gian Luigi Fieschi, whose 1547 plot against Andrea Doria ended in his drowning in harbor armor.