Speaker
Description
In 2017 the author described four modern counterfeits of communal coins of Asti (1141-1336), two of which are now found in the Fitzwiliam Museum in Cambridge. Their stylistic and epigraphic details suggested they could be the work of the infamous forger Luigi Cigoi. Two years later we identified a gros tournois with unique characteristics. An in-depth analysis and comparison of surface details helped to identify this piece with a reasonable certainty as a modern counterfeit made by lost-wax casting. This coin appears to be identical with a gros tournois kept in the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica in Turin. Currently, the discovery of a new Cigoi-style gros tournois and of a very suspicious cast of a gros tournois auctioned off in 1928, probably obtained by lost-wax casting, leads us to update the state of knowledge and opens up the way for future research.
