Teston - Francis I 10th type

The teston was France's answer to the large silver coinages proliferating across Italy and the Holy Roman Empire in the late fifteenth century, and Francis I inherited both the denomination and its ambitions when he took the throne in 1515. His Italian campaigns — Marignano in particular — kept the royal treasury under sustained pressure, and the teston's consistent weight standard was as much a diplomatic instrument as a domestic one, enabling payments to Swiss mercenaries and Italian bankers who would accept nothing they couldn't assay. The tenth type represents one of the later evolutions within his long reign, reflecting gradual adjustments to the bust treatment and mint marks across multiple issuing workshops.