Sol

Geneva's adoption of Reformed Christianity in 1536 — the same year Calvin arrived — forced an immediate restructuring of civic authority, including monetary rights previously shared with the Bishop of Geneva. The city had effectively expelled Bishop Pierre de la Baume in 1533, and these billon sols belong to the transitional decade when Geneva was consolidating independent coinage under an entirely new political order, no longer ecclesiastical but not yet the theocratic republic it would become.

HMZ 2-303 covers a span of issues across this fifteen-year window, and individual pieces can vary meaningfully in die execution and billon fineness.