Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Denaro cremonese in the name of Frederick II, Stars
| Issuer | Commune of Cremona |
|---|---|
| Year | 1254-1300 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 0.3 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | CREMONA |
| Reverse description | Central field features a long cross with small stars or pellets in the angles, enclosed within a linear circle, a common compositional device on Imperial-title denari of northern Italian communes. The surrounding legend invokes Emperor Frederick II, asserting the commune's imperial allegiance. The inscription is distributed around the circumference, partially obscured by the irregularity of the flan and the weakness of the strike. The workmanship is characteristic of hammered billon coinage struck under communal authority in the latter half of the 13th century. Small star-shaped or omega-form punctuation marks serve as word dividers within the legend. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Cremona occupied an awkward political position in thirteenth-century Lombardy — officially Ghibelline and aligned with the emperor, yet a functioning commune with its own civic ambitions. Striking coins in Frederick II's name after his death in 1250 was a deliberate act of political theater: the city retained imperial iconography not out of loyalty to a living sovereign but to assert its jurisdictional independence from papal-backed Guelf rivals in the region. Frederick had been dead for years before this type was even struck.
The CNI IV#32 attribution places this firmly within the later anonymous civic issues, where the imperial name functioned as legal cover rather than genuine allegiance.