Denier - Otto III as emperor, Pavia mint

Otto III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome in May 996 at just fifteen years old, the youngest emperor to that point. His Italian coinage was struck at Pavia — the traditional Lombard royal capital and the dominant mint for the regnum Italiae — under a monetary system inherited almost unchanged from his Carolingian predecessors. The Pavia mint's output during his reign is documented across several die varieties catalogued in MEC XII as numbers 13 through 20, suggesting sustained if not prolific production across his six years as emperor.

Otto died in January 1002 at Paterno, aged twenty-one, ending a reign marked by his obsessive ambition to restore a Roman imperial order centered on the city of Rome itself rather than the Frankish north.