Liard of Dauphine - Charles VIII dolphin on reverse

Charles VIII inherited the Dauphiné title at birth — as eldest son of Louis XI he was Dauphin from 1470 — but the province retained its own mint and coinage traditions well into his reign as king, a legacy of the 1349 transfer of Dauphiné to the French crown under the condition that the heir apparent would always bear its title. The liard denominations struck there occupy an awkward monetary moment: Charles's Italian ambitions after 1494 redirected enormous fiscal energy toward war finance, yet small billon coinage continued rolling out of provincial mints on older administrative inertia.

The Ciani gap in the references is worth noting — this type apparently fell outside his systematic coverage rather than being genuinely unrecorded.