Catalog
2 Tari - Jean de Vallette
| Issuer | Order of Malta (Knights Hospitaller) |
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| Year | 1557-1568 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Quartered shield bearing the arms of Grand Master Jean de Vallette: the first and fourth quarters display the arms of the Order of St. John (a plain cross on a plain field), while the second and third quarters bear the personal arms of Vallette (a gyrfalcon and a lion). The shield is set in the field with the encircling Latin legend identifying the Grand Master. |
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| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | ☩ F · IOANNES DE VALETA ❜ M ❜ HOSP ❜HIERS (Translation: Fra` Jean de Vallette, master of the Hospitallers of Jerusalem) |
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| Additional information |
Jean de Vallette served as Grand Master from 1557 until his death in 1568, a tenure defined almost entirely by one event: the Great Siege of 1565, during which an Ottoman force estimated at 40,000 men failed to dislodge roughly 700 Knights and several thousand Maltese soldiers over four months. The siege's failure shifted the strategic balance of the central Mediterranean and secured the Order's presence on Malta for another two and a half centuries.
Coinage struck under de Vallette is relatively scarce — the island's mint was not a high-volume operation, and wartime disruption to silver supply during 1565 almost certainly interrupted production.