Hieronymus von Colloredo is remembered by music historians almost exclusively as Mozart's employer — the Archbishop who kept the composer in servile conditions before Mozart's acrimonious dismissal from Salzburg service in 1781, the year before this coin was struck. As Archbishop-Prince, Colloredo also governed a sovereign ecclesiastical state, and these small copper issues were the practical currency of that administration. The dismissal and this minting are essentially concurrent.
Hieronymus von Colloredo is remembered by music historians almost exclusively as Mozart's employer — the Archbishop who kept the composer in servile conditions before Mozart's acrimonious dismissal from Salzburg service in 1781, the year before this coin was struck. As Archbishop-Prince, Colloredo also governed a sovereign ecclesiastical state, and these small copper issues were the practical currency of that administration. The dismissal and this minting are essentially concurrent.