Grosso ou barbone

Lucca was one of the few Italian city-states to maintain genuine republican government into the eighteenth century, an anomaly that French troops would finally extinguish in 1799. The barbone — named for the bearded facing bust that distinguishes it from earlier grosso types — was struck under the oversight of the Anziani, the rotating magistracy that had governed the commune since medieval times.

The MIR 224 attribution places this issue firmly within the final productive decades of the mint before Napoleonic reorganization ended independent Lucchese coinage entirely.