Denier

Geneva's copper deniers of this period were struck under the authority of the city's republican magistracy, which had maintained effective independence since breaking with the House of Savoy in the early sixteenth century. The 1609 date places this piece squarely in the tense decades following the Escalade of 1602, when a Savoyard night assault on the city walls was repelled — an event the Genevans commemorated annually and which hardened civic identity considerably.

Small copper issues like this circulated hard in local markets and survive mostly worn flat. The HMZ reference distinguishes die variants within the type that differ in subtle legend spacing.