2 Testone - Johann Jakob Trivulzio

Johann Jakob Trivulzio received the lordship of Mesocco in 1480 after the Sforza-aligned Sacco family sold it to settle debts. His subsequent defection to the French — he commanded the forces that took Milan for Louis XII in 1499 — made his position in the Swiss-border valleys increasingly complicated, and the coinage from his lordship reflects that ambiguity: a northern Italian signore striking silver of near-ducal weight from a jurisdiction that would soon be absorbed by the Graubünden canton entirely.

The double testone weight places this among the more ambitious feudal issues of the period. Mesocco passed definitively to Graubünden in 1549, long after Trivulzio's death in 1518.