10 Scudi - Victor Amadeus I

Victor Amadeus I ruled Savoy under the long shadow of his father Charles Emmanuel I, who had spent decades entangling the duchy in ruinously expensive military campaigns across Piedmont and Montferrat. When Victor Amadeus inherited in 1630, the treasury was depleted and the duchy was navigating the competing pressures of France and Spain during the Thirty Years' War. Large gold multiples of this kind were not struck for circulation — they functioned as diplomatic gifts and presentation pieces, a currency of alliance-building rather than commerce.

The MIR 699 attribution places this among the rarest of the Savoyard gold series. Surviving examples in any condition are infrequently encountered at auction.