Teston - Francis I 10th type

The 10th type teston of Francis I belongs to the final years of his reign, a period defined by the ruinous costs of his Italian campaigns and near-constant friction with the Habsburgs. By the 1540s the French treasury was under severe strain, and the teston — a large silver denomination introduced in France partly to compete with imperial coinage circulating across Europe — had already been through multiple successive types as the monarchy adjusted standards and mint controls. Duplessy's classification into numbered types reflects genuine progressive changes in die preparation and monetary ordinances rather than simple design evolution.