Conveners
S71. MIDDLE AGES 9. MONETARY SYSTEMS IN TRANSITION IN MEDIEVAL CENTRAL ITALY
- Elina Screen (Fitzwilliam Museum)
Description
Org.: William Day, chair: Elina Screen
This session, sponsored by the Medieval European Coinage Project of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, will present new research on Medieval Central Italian coinages. Italian numismatics is a strong and vibrant field, but many important questions remain to be answered about mint activity and moneys of account in Italy, about the complexity of Italy's monetary areas and about the diffusion of Italian coinages beyond Italy. The session will explore moments of transition in mints and monetary areas as well as the spread of Florentine gold florins and their unsigned imitations to Poland. The topics include the definitive cessation of the papal-imperial coinage in the mint at Rome, the transition from communal minting authority to papal authority in the Papal States, developments in systems of account in the Este dominions to facilitate exchange throughout the Italian kingdom, and the unsigned imitations of Florentine gold florins appearing in the Zalewo hoard (Poland). It will focus on current research towards Medieval European Coinage, vol. 13, on Central Italy while highlighting the wider contribution of the Medieval European Coinage project to the field. Confirmed speakers include established scholars Professor Andrea Saccocci and Dr William R. Day Jr., as well as the early career scholars Dr Mariele Valci and Dr Massimo De Benetti. Dr Elina Screen, General Editor of Medieval European Coinage, will chair the session. It will be of significant interest to scholars working on Italy and on medieval numismatics more generally, given the wide relevance of the session themes for anyone working on the history of mints, minting authorities, account systems, monetary areas and imitation coinages.
In Central Italy, as the popes consolidated authority over their territorial state and as cities drifted into (and sometimes out of) papal control, mints accordingly passed from communal and/or seigniorial authority under the authority of the popes or their representatives (and sometimes back again). Although the precise moment of transition is often clearly indicated in the relevant...
The paper presents the results of the PhD research project on "The first 100 years of the gold florin of Florence (1252-1351)", carried out at the Universities of Granada (Spain) and Ca’ Foscari of Venice (Italy). The research has involved several museums and institutions in Europe, with the acquisition of new data on documentary sources, archaeological finds and numismatic collections....
The paper analyses the role of the coins of the Este mints (Ferrara, Modena and Reggio) in the development of Italian monetary circulation between the 12th and 15th centuries, a role which certainly goes beyond the borders of the small territories they belonged to. This conclusion is based partly on coin finds, but also on the diffusion of certain coin names in archival documents and sources...
This article will focus on the economy and coinage in Rome between the eighth and tenth centuries, when the city and its mint were under papal control. It will first discuss the reasons why Rome had a small-scale monetary economy even when, in relative terms, it was a large centre with complex political structures. The diverse functions of Roman coinage, and specifically of the Antiquiores,...
