Ducat - Charles III

Charles III ruled Savoy for nearly five decades but spent much of his reign as a political pawn between Francis I of France and Charles V of Habsburg, losing effective control of his territories entirely after the French invasion of 1536. For the last eighteen years of his life he governed little more than a rump state centered on Vercelli, Asti, and Nice — the rest occupied by French or Imperial forces. That his mint continued striking gold at all during those decades is notable; it speaks to the administrative persistence of ducal pretension even when the duchy itself had largely ceased to function.

The MIR 323 attribution covers a type struck across a long span, meaning individual specimens can vary meaningfully in die workmanship and surface quality depending on which years of the issue they represent.