Liard

[andyg]

A liard - what's left of the legend reads MON. NOV.


(I worked out where this from - a small challenge should you dare )

[Guillaume Hermann]

Hello,

Italian imitation in Desana of the French liard au Saint Esprit. Numista 120654 https://fr.numista.com/catalogue/pieces120654.html
Obverse : MON. NOV. IM. COM. DEC.
Reverse : SIT·NOMEN·D·BENED

[andyg]

Yes, it's quite a fun little coin - I bought it as "Dombres, Liard" but just couldn't make the legends fit, nor could I see any traces of date.

[Figleaf]

Thank you, andyg! That brightened a foggy morning.

The county of Desana existed from 1510 to 1693. Louis II of Desana (1510-1525) acquired minting rights from Maximillian, emperor of Germany (1493-1519). He opened a mint in Passerano. In 1683, the county was sold to the duke of Savoy, who closed the mint.

Its coinage was apparently issued in the period 1581-1587, though. I have not found a count whose first name started with H, so it is probably safe to assume that the H with three fleurs de lis refers to Henri III of France. Said Henri issued liards and among those, the liard au Saint Esprit (1583-1587), Dy 1146, clearly served as a model for the Desana coin.

The obverse legend differs. On the Desana coin it is MONeta. NOVa. IM (?). COMitvs. DECiana. - new coin of the county of Desana. Also, Duplessy says the French coin is 0.956 gram, while Numista reports a weight of 0.75 for the Desana coin, which would make the latter around 20% underweight. The only listing I found was in Le imitazioni e le contraffazioni monetarie nel Mondo by Cesare Gamberini di Scarfèa. It is at least clear that Numista errs by describing the cross as Maltese.

To my surprise, I could not find a historical background for the imitation, so what follows is speculation. It is based on two elements. First, geographically, Desana is part of an area long claimed by France and under French control at the time the coin was struck, centred around Aosta (less than 60 kilometers from Desana). Second, historically, the period of issue is within a period of civil war in France, pitting the protestant Henri III against a succession of roman catholic pretenders. Significantly, that war ended in 1588 (a year after the last listed coin of Desana) when Paris went over to Henri III, who converted to catholicism for the occasion and calmed his adversary, the Duke of Guise, to the point where they agreed on the highly tolerant edict of Nantes.

The Desana coins resemble those of a protestant ruler, but the Tizzoni family was undoubtedly catholic. Therefore, the imitations were neither flattery nor support for Henri, but rather the opposite: economic warfare against the protestant camp, using the confusion of the war, the old links to France and the old minting right to support the catholics. Tizzoni hoped that by issuing light coppers, he could undermine confidence in the royal French copper. This explains why the mint was in Passerano, not Desana. If things turned out badly, the local mint master would be hanged, not Tizzoni, who would proclaim his ignorance. Meanwhile, he would share in the proceeds of the mint. When Paris fell to Henri, the situation changed and the Desana coinage was halted. The above was standard procedure for the small catholic lords minting lightweight copper imitations of coins of the Republic on the river Meuse.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Update, in the Italian version of Wikipedia I found more info on the activities of the mint. It had a tradition of imitating foreign coins: dal tallero di Salisburgo, al liard di Enrico III di Francia, dal fiorino olandese al quattrino di Milano. - from Salzburg thalers to the liard of Henri III of France, from Dutch florins (a highly improbable denomination at this time) to the quattrino of Milano (probably the duchy of Savoy). The lemma shows an elaborate coin dated 1617.

Found another listing: Monete della zecca di Desana by Domenico Casimiro Promis, Torino 1863.

Peter

[Guillaume Hermann]

Peter, you are mixing Henri III king of Navarre (Protestant and future king of France Henri IV after he converted to catholicism) with Henri III king of France ! The issuer of the liard au Saint Esprit is Henri III of France who had never been a Protestant...
And this precise type of coin is exactly the opposite of a coin from a "Protestant ruler" as the Saint Esprit appeared on this coin in the same time Henri III king of France, his issuer, created the Order of the Holy Spirit (1578), symbolised by the same cross, Order of which Protestants were strictly excluded.
Duke of Guise was extremely calm at the end of 1588, as he had been assassinated on the 23rd of December... but Henri III of Navarre converted only in 1593. And Duke of Guise never agreed with the edict of Nantes of 1598 as he was in his grave for almost ten years.

Andyg, Dombes (and not Dombres) and Desana both imitated the same French royal coin, the liard au Saint Esprit. I talked about Dombes on a WoC event.