Grosso 'Guelfo del fiore'

The "Guelfo del fiore" grosso takes its name from the Guelf faction that dominated Florentine politics in the early fourteenth century — a period when the city's banking houses were underwriting half the crowned heads of Europe while fighting bitterly over internal factional control. Florence had expelled the Ghibellines decisively by 1302, and this coinage reflects the political confidence of the victorious party. The issue was short-lived, struck across a single fiscal biennium before the type was superseded.

MIR 46 is among the scarcer grosso varieties of the Republican period.