Mezzano

Pavia's monetary authority in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries operated under the fractured political reality of Lombard communal coinage — multiple cities striking competing small billon issues of nearly identical weight and fabric, often accepted interchangeably at market. The mezzano occupied the middle denomination in Pavia's hierarchy, below the denaro imperiale and above the smaller minuto, and its forty-year production window reflects the unusual stability of Pavese civic administration during a period when neighboring communes were being absorbed by signorie.