Denaro - In name of Frederick 'Scodellato'

Bergamo's civic coinage of this period is politically loaded: the city struck in the name of Frederick II not out of loyalty but as a pragmatic acknowledgment of imperial authority during a period when the Lombard communes were navigating an increasingly dangerous relationship with the Hohenstaufen emperor. Frederick's prolonged conflict with the Lombard League — culminating in his excommunication by Gregory IX in 1239 — made such nominal attributions a form of diplomatic cover rather than genuine submission. The scodellato fabric, with its characteristic bowl-struck curvature, is a regional convention shared across northern Italian denari of the period.