John Baptist Orsini served as Grand Master of the Hospitallers from 1467 to 1476, a tenure defined largely by the Order's increasingly precarious hold on Rhodes against Ottoman pressure following Mehmed II's consolidation of power after Constantinople fell in 1453. The asper was a small silver denomination borrowed directly from contemporary Levantine monetary practice — the Hospitallers adopted it precisely because it was already understood by the traders and populations they dealt with across the eastern Mediterranean.
Schlumberger's reference for this type remains the foundational citation, though the series is poorly documented by surviving specimens.
John Baptist Orsini served as Grand Master of the Hospitallers from 1467 to 1476, a tenure defined largely by the Order's increasingly precarious hold on Rhodes against Ottoman pressure following Mehmed II's consolidation of power after Constantinople fell in 1453. The asper was a small silver denomination borrowed directly from contemporary Levantine monetary practice — the Hospitallers adopted it precisely because it was already understood by the traders and populations they dealt with across the eastern Mediterranean.
Schlumberger's reference for this type remains the foundational citation, though the series is poorly documented by surviving specimens.