PAPAL COINAGE to 1605 NOTES on PAPAL COINAGE the Papal Mint Is the Pope's Institute for the Production of Hard Cash
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PAPAL COINAGE To 1605 NOTES ON PAPAL COINAGE The Papal Mint is the pope's institute for the production of hard cash. Papal Mint may also refer to the buildings in Avignon, Rome and elsewhere which used to house the mint. (The Italian word for mint is Zecca). The right to coin money being one of the regalia (sovereign prerogatives), there can be no papal coins of earlier date than that of the temporal power of the popes. Nevertheless, there are coins of Pope Zacharias (741-52), of Gregory III (Ficoroni, "Museo Kircheriano"), and possibly of Gregory II (715-741). There is no doubt that these pieces, two of which are of silver, are true coins, and not merely a species of medals, like those which were distributed as "presbyterium" at the coronation of the popes since the time of Valentine (827). Their stamp resembles that of the Byzantine and Merovingian coins of the seventh and eighth centuries, and their square shape is also found in Byzantine pieces. Those that bear the inscription GREII PAPE — SCI PTR (Gregorii Papæ — Sancti Petri) cannot be attributed to Pope Gregory IV (827-44), because of the peculiarity of minting. The existence of these coins, while the popes yet recognized the Byzantine domination, is explained by Hartmann (Das Königreich Italien, Vol. III), who believes that, in the eighth century, the popes received from the emperors the attributes of "Præfectus Urbis". Under the empire, coins that were struck in the provinces bore the name of some local magistrate, and those coins of Gregory and of Zacharias are simply imperial Byzantine pieces, bearing the name of the first civil magistrate of the City of Rome. There are no coins of pope Stephen III or of pope Paul I, who reigned when the Duchy of Rome was already independent of the Eastern Empire; the first true papal coins are those of Adrian I, from whose time until the reign of pope John XIV (984) the popes coined money at Rome. There is no pontifical money of a date between the last-named year and 1305; this is explained, in part, by the fact that the Senate of Rome, which sought to replace the papacy in the temporal government of the city, took over the mint in 1143. On the other hand, Prince Alberic had already coined money in his own name. The coins of the Senate of Rome usually bear the inscrip- tion "ROMA CAPUT MUNDI", or, S. P. Q. R., or both, with or without emblems. In 1188 the mint was restored to pope Clement III, with the agreement that half of its profits should be assigned to the sindaco, or mayor. The Senate, meanwhile, continued to coin money, and there is no reference on the coins of that time to the papal authority. In the thirteenth century the Sindaco caused his own name to be stamped upon the coins, and, consequently, we have coins of Brancaleone, of Charles I of Anjou, of Francesco Anguillara, viceroy of Robert of Naples, etc.; so did King Ladislao. Cola di Rienzi, during his brief tribunate, likewise struck coins, with the inscription: N. TRIBUN. AUGUST.: ROMA CAPU. MU. Papal coins reappeared with the removal of the pontifical Court to Avignon, although there exists a single coin that is referred to Benedict XI (1303-4), with the legend COITAT. VENASIN; as, however, this pope never resided in Venaissin, which had belonged to the Holy See since 1274, the coin should be referred to Benedict XII. There are coins of all the popes from John XXII to Pius IX. The popes, and also the Senate when it coined money, appear to have used the imperial mint of Rome, which was on the slope of the Campidoglio, not far from the Arch of Septimius Severus; but in the fifteenth century the mint was near the bank of Santo Spirito. Finally, in 1665, Alexander VII moved it to the rear of the apse of St. Peter's. Bernini invented for it a machine to do the work more rapidly, and Francesco Girardini furnished a very sensitive balance; so that the mint of Rome was technically the most perfect one of those times. In 1845 Pius IX equipped it with the most modern appliances. The administration of the mint was at first entrusted to the cardinal camerlengo; direct supervision, however, was exercised by the senate, from the time at least when that body took possession of the mint, until the reign of pope Martin V. The sindaco and the conservators of the Camera Capitolina appointed the masters of the mint, while the minting was witnessed by the heads of the guild of goldsmiths and silversmiths. In 1322 John XXII created the office of treasurer for the mint of Avignon, and its incumbent, little by little, made himself independent of the camerlengo. Later, the office of prelate president of the mint was created. According to Lunadori (Relaz. della Corte di Roma, 1646), the establishments for the coining of money were in charge of a con- gregation of cardinals. Rome was not the only city of the Pontifical States that had a mint: prior to the year 1000, there existed at Ravenna the former imperial mint, which was ceded in 996 to Archbishop Gerberto by Gregory V; there were mints also at Spoleto and at Benevento, former residences of Lombard dukes. The Archbishop of Ravenna, who was a feudatory of the emperor rather than of the pope, coined money as long as his temporal power over that city and its territory lasted. The mint of the Emperor Henry VI was estab- lished at Bologna in 1194, and nearly all of the coins struck there bear the motto BONONIA DOCET, or BONONIA MATER STU- DIORUM. The baiocchi of Bologna were called bolognini; the gold bolognino was equivalent to a gold sequin. The lira, also a Bolognese coin, was worth 20 bolognini. These coins were struck in the name of the commune; it is only from the time when Bologna was recovered by the Holy See, under Clement VI, that Bolognese coins may be regarded as papal. All papal coins, with rare exceptions, bear the name of the pope, preceded (until the time of Paul II) by a Greek cross, and nearly all of the more ancient ones bear, either on the obverse or on the reverse, the words S. PETRUS, and some of them, the words S. PAULUS also. From Leo III to the Ottonian dynasty, the coins bear the name of the Holy Roman Emperor as well as that of the pope. After the sixteenth century the coat of arms of the pope alone frequently appears on pontifical coins. There are also found images of the Saviour, or of saints, symbolical figures of men or of animals, the keys (which appear for the first time on the coins of Benevento) etc. From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, Biblical or moral phrases are added, in allusion to the saint or to the symbol that is stamped upon the coin, e.g. MONSTRA TE ESSE MATREM, SPES NOSTRA, SUB TUUM PRÆSIDIUM, TOTA PULCERA, SUPRA FIRMAM PETRAM, DA RECTA SAPERE (during the Conclave), UBI THESAURUS IBI COR, CRESCENTEM SEQUITUR CURA PECUNIAM, HILAREM DATOREM DILIGIT DEUS, PRO PRETIO ANIMÆ, FERRO NOCENTIUS AURUM, IN SUDORE VULTUS, CONSERVATÆ PEREUNT, TOLLE ET PROIICE, etc. Sometimes allusion is made to an historical event, as the acquisition of Ferrara, or the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks(1683), or to some concession of the pope to his subjects, or to a jubilee year. From the time of Clement X the coins struck at Rome bear a minute representation of the coat of arms of the prelate in charge of the mint, a custom that obtained until 1817. The only instance of a cardinal camerlengo stamping his coat of arms on the coins during the lifetime of the pope is that of Cardinal Armellini, under Adrian VI, in the case of four grossi. The mints outside of Rome stamped the coins with the arms of their respective cities, or with those of the cardinal legate, of the vice-legate, or of the governor; thus, Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1612 struck coins at Avignon with his own name and arms, omitting the name of the pope, an example that was followed a year later by the pro-legate Cardinal Filonardi. The city very often placed the image of its patron saint on its coins. The date came to be stamped on coins that were struck during the vacancies of the Holy See, occasionally at first, and later as a rule; it rarely appears on other coins before 1550; the practice became general in the seventeenth century, the year of the Christian era or that of the pontificate being used; and Gregory XVI established it by law, as also the requirement that each coin should bear upon it an expression of its value. At Bologna as early as the seventeenth century, the value of gold or silver coins was usually indicated with the figures 20, 40, 80, etc., i.e. so many bolognini or baiocchi; at Rome, in the eighteenth century, nearly all the copper coins bore an indication of their value. The rim of papal coins rarely bore an inscription; at most, the monogram of the city in which the coin was struck was stamped upon it. From the sixteenth century, the engravers, also, put their ciphers on the coins; among these engravers may be named Benvenuto Cellini, Francesco Raibolini, called il Francia (Bologna), the four Hamerani, Giulio Romano (trident), Cavaliere Lucenti, Andrea Perpenti etc. Until the time of Pius VI, the dies for the mint remained the property of the engravers.