Testone - Johann Franz Trivulzio

The Trivulzio family acquired Mesocco — a strategically vital valley controlling the San Bernardino pass between the Rhine and Po drainages — through marriage into the Sax-Misox dynasty in 1480. Johann Franz, as lord, exercised the minting privilege during a period when the valley was effectively a buffer between Swiss confederate expansion and Milanese political instability following the French invasions. The Lordship of Mesocco was ceded to the Graubünden in 1549, which coincides with the terminal date of this issue and almost certainly marks the end of independent minting rights there.