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Teston - Bonifacio Ferrero
| Issuer | Abbey of Fruttuaria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1529-1543 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of Cardinal Bonifacio Ferrero in right profile, depicted wearing ecclesiastical robes with an ornate morse clasp across the chest. The effigy is rendered in high relief with detailed treatment of the hair and vestments, characteristic of Renaissance Italian medallic art. A beaded inner border separates the central device from the circumferential Latin legend, which reads ☩B.F.CAR.IIPOR.ABAS.S.BENIG., identifying the sitter as Cardinal Ferrero, Commendatory Abbot of San Benigno. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Saint Benignus, patron martyr of the Abbey of Fruttuaria, depicted seated facing, his right hand raised in benediction and his left hand holding a palm frond, the traditional attribute of martyrdom. The figure is presented in a hieratic, frontal pose within an open field, reflecting the devotional iconographic conventions of early sixteenth-century Italian ecclesiastical coinage. The circumferential Latin legend S BENIGNVS MARTIR ☩ encircles the design within a beaded border. |
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| Additional information |
The Abbey of Fruttuaria, founded in 1003 near San Benigno Canavese in Piedmont, held coinage rights as part of its broader temporal privileges — an arrangement that became increasingly anomalous by the sixteenth century. Bonifacio Ferrero, who served as commendatory abbot from 1529, was simultaneously Bishop of Ivrea and a cardinal of considerable political reach within the Savoy orbit, which likely explains how the abbey sustained minting activity this late.
Ecclesiastical testons of this type are genuinely scarce survivors. Most Italian monastic mints had lost practical coinage rights well before this period; Fruttuaria's persistence into the 1540s makes it an outlier.