Grosso St. Homobono

Cremona struck this grosso in 1527, the same year imperial Landsknechts and Spanish troops sacked Rome — an event that convulsed northern Italian city finances and forced several communes to issue emergency or prestige silver simply to maintain transactional credibility with trading partners. Homobono of Cremona, canonized in 1199 just two years after his death, was the city's patron and a cloth merchant by trade, making him an unusually apt figure for a commercial coinage.