Owner Comments:
AV Fiorino d’oro (21mm, 3.53 g, 9h). III Serie, tipo C. Struck 1252-1260. + FLOR ENTIA, lily; N and A double barred / (annulet) • S • IOHA NNES • B •, S. Giovanni Battista; Ns and H double barred. CNI XII 13; Bernocchi 85; MIR 3/5. EF.
The Florentine florin was a coin struck from November, 1252 to 1533 in about .986 fine gold at 3.53 grams, with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It was the first European gold coin to achieve the status of an international currency after the disappearance of European gold coinage in the 700’s. At least, it is believed to have predated the Genovino of Genoa that started being struck around the same time.
During the 550-year "dark age" for gold in most of Western Europe, gold was used only in Southern Italy, Sicily and Spain, which were under Arabic influence. In the rest of Europe some gold had still been exchanged as payment, as bullion, jewelry, and Muslim coins.
The increase of trade with the Levant that went along with the crusades eventually brought enough gold to Florence to instigate gold coinage – first in Italy, and later all over Europe. As many Florentine banks were international supercompanies with branches across Europe, the florin quickly became the dominant trade coin of Western Europe for large-scale transactions, replacing silver bars in multiples of the mark (a weight unit equal to eight troy ounces). The mint also issued the fiorino di suggello for large amounts of transactions. The fiorino di suggello were sealed leather bags containing a certain amount of florins. Within 20 years, by 1273 Roman real estate was being sold for florins and the Papacy established the florin as its preferred form of payment by 1296.
In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, written in the early 1300s, in the lowest pits of the Inferno is Master Adam, a counterfeiter of florins. He represented Adam of Brescia, who was employed by a rival Italian ruler to undermine the Florentine coinage “with three carats alloy.” In the real world he was, as Dante says, burnt at the stake in 1281.
In the 1300’s, a hundred and fifty European states and local coin-issuing authorities made their own copies of the florin. The most important of these was the Hungarian forint, because the Kingdom of Hungary was a major source of European gold (until mining in the New World began to contribute to the supply in the 1500’s and 1600’s, most of the gold used in Europe came from Africa).
The design of the original Florentine florins was the distinctive fleur-de-lis badge of the city on one side and on the other a standing and facing figure of St. John the Baptist wearing a hare shirt. The name of the coin comes from the iris flower whose image adorned one side of the coin. So, the coin was called fiorino d'oro (from Latin flos = flower, and oro = gold).
On other countries' florins, the inscriptions were changed (from "Florentia" around the fleur, and the name of the saint on the other), and local heraldic devices were substituted for the fleur-de-lis.
Later, other figures were often substituted for St. John. On the Hungarian forints, St. John was re-labelled St. Ladislaus, an early Christian king and patron saint of Hungary, and a battle axe substituted for the original's sceptre. Gradually this also morphed into the standing knight in profile with a sword over his shoulder on the gold ducats of the Netherlands struck more than 300 years later from the 1580’s to the present.
In the second half of the 1200’s and the first part of the 1300’s the Florentine florin rose to become the equivalent of the modern-day dollar in international trade. During the 1400’s the Venetian ducat displaced the Florentine florin as the international currency par excellence.
As the late medieval age of gold was fading before a new age of silver, the Florentine florin itself would soon cease to exist. The last one was issued in 1531, just as the Republic of Florence was being transformed into a hereditary duchy ruled by the Medici dynasty.
Sold previously at CNG auction 96 lot 1130 $3300 including premium (2014), then did not sell at Kunker 260 lot 1599 (2015), then sold $4800 including premium at Heritage (Jan 2019), then CNG May 2020 $3300 including premium. Someone made an offer to the old owner on Heritage in October 2020 for $6240 after they'd sold it.