Louis XII of France seized Milan in 1499 after defeating Ludovico Sforza, whose flight to the Habsburgs left the duchy briefly uncontested. These large multiple-ducat gold pieces — struck across the thirteen years of French occupation — served the immediate political need of an occupying power asserting legitimacy over a wealthy northern Italian state, and their production was likely intermittent rather than systematic. The CNI V#1 reference places this as the primary citation type, but surviving examples are genuinely rare; few institutions hold more than one.
Louis lost Milan definitively in 1512 when the Holy League expelled French forces, ending this coinage abruptly.
Louis XII of France seized Milan in 1499 after defeating Ludovico Sforza, whose flight to the Habsburgs left the duchy briefly uncontested. These large multiple-ducat gold pieces — struck across the thirteen years of French occupation — served the immediate political need of an occupying power asserting legitimacy over a wealthy northern Italian state, and their production was likely intermittent rather than systematic. The CNI V#1 reference places this as the primary citation type, but surviving examples are genuinely rare; few institutions hold more than one.
Louis lost Milan definitively in 1512 when the Holy League expelled French forces, ending this coinage abruptly.