Fiorino - In name of Otto

Lucca's decision to strike gold florins in the name of Otto — the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV — was a calculated political maneuver long after Otto himself had died in 1218. The city continued invoking his name on coinage for nearly a century, a legal fiction that kept the coins acceptable across imperial trade networks while insulating Lucca from the need to acknowledge any subsequent emperor. Florence had pioneered the florin type in 1252, and Lucca's imitation was frank commercial pragmatism: the Tuscan trade circuits ran on florins, and Lucca needed interoperable currency.

The specific weight standard — tracking Florence closely — was the point. Otto's name was just the wrapper.