6 Sols

Geneva struck this coin in the immediate aftermath of the Escalade — the failed Savoyard night raid of December 1602 in which Duke Charles Emmanuel I attempted to seize the city by scaling its walls. The attack was repulsed, and Geneva's independence was preserved. Coinage from this precise year carries that political weight without ceremony: the city was asserting its autonomy in metal as pointedly as it had defended it in blood.

The HMZ attribution places this among the earliest standardized silver issues of the reformed Genevan monetary system.