3 Piccioli - Giovanni Paolo Lascaris Castellar

Giovanni Paolo Lascaris de Castellar's reign over the Order of St. John in Malta lasted over two decades, making him one of the longer-serving Grand Masters of the seventeenth century. The piccioli denominations were the workhorse coinage of everyday Maltese commerce — bought bread, paid ferrymen, settled small debts — while the Order's silver and gold circulated in more rarefied transactions. Copper issues from this reign survive in widely varying states, having actually done the work coinage is meant to do.