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Grosso of 3 imperials - In the name of Conrad II
| Issuer | Piacenza, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1140-1313 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 1.8 g |
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| Obverse description | Within a beaded outer border, the field is divided between an outer annular legend and an inner zone separated by a rope-twist (corded) circle adorned with two small inward-pointing wedges or cusps at intervals. The inner zone displays three large Gothic letters arranged around a central pellet, the letters completing the sense of the surrounding legend. The outer legend reads DE PLACEN CIA, identifying the issuing commune of Piacenza. The overall design is characteristic of north Italian communal coinage, with bold, deeply struck lettering filling the field in a compact, architecturally arranged composition. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | DE PLACEN CIA (Translation: of Piacenza) |
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| Additional information |
Piacenza's civic coinage emerged from the fragmented authority of the Lombard communes, which began asserting monetary rights largely without imperial sanction during the twelfth century. Striking in the name of Conrad II — a ruler dead since 1039 — was a deliberate political maneuver: invoking a distant emperor carried none of the obligations that acknowledging a living one would demand, while still providing a veneer of legitimate authority that purely civic imagery could not.
This fiction persisted across nearly two centuries of production, making attribution by style and die work essential to any serious dating within the 1140–1313 bracket.