Bought this coin as Italy Campobasso Nicola II di Monforte denier tournois 17mm , 0,7g . Seems to be right . Visible letters seems to match NICOLA COM / CAMPIBASSI . I'd be very grateful for attribution confirmation . Biagi 539-540 is the right reference? Thanks .
Yipes, VD76, I'm completely stumped. Had no idea there were tournois knock-offs in Italy --which is one of my numerous weakest areas where medievals are concerned, equally for references and, well, any clue otherwise. Best of luck!
I’m in the same boat.... Great !!! So Biagi 539-540 is the right reference? Here’s another interesting coin. First it was listed about two months ago and I missed the ending time . But then it was relisted again and I won yesterday about three times cheaper than it was sold at first time . The only thing is what can I say about this coin is that it’s not in Malloy . The letters in the legend , that I figured , do not make any sense to me . 0.81 g.
@VD76 we've talked before about the tornese in Italy, when you posted that wonderful tornese of Alfonso di Trastamara naming him Duke of Athens. Unfortunately I don't have my books on Abruzzo and Molise on me to check the attribution of your Nicola. Your other one is probably a contemporary counterfeit of a denier tournois of Glarentza in Achaea, very likely from around the first part up to the mid of the 14th century.
@seth77 Thanks . When I receive the coin, at least I'll try to identify the letters in the legends on both sides. If it will be possible I have another mystery denier . It’s very similar to the Chios under the Maona Society deniers
Unfortunately I don't have Lunardi here either, but it looks like a tornese of Chios. I do have Tzamalis though, and I'll check tomorrow to see if it's in there.
Thank you . Le Monete delle Colonie Genovesi pdf https://www.storiapatriagenova.it/D...fc127900/b951fa2b11b625617738aac13db46a05.pdf
@VD76, your documentation (...dealing with whatever kind of (expl.del.) scanner you have) is cordially appreciated. Even, in effect, vicariously. Right, the coins are cool, too! What is known about how the tournois type migrated this far south? The 'usual suspect' would be Charles d'Anjou, but the influence could easily have gone further back than that.
If you have access to Lunardi most of your id is already there. As I thought these are also in Tzamalis (at least one variation) F203 p.256. As for the history of the tournois in Greece, it arrived after the Fourth Crusade in the form of royal tournois of Philippe II and Louis IX and afterwards the lighter tournois provencal of Charles d'Anjou and the tournois from Toulouse and the Marquisat of Alphonse de France. After the royal order that rejected the use of feudal tournois in the royal demesne and the copying of the royal coinage in 1263 and even more so after Viterbo in 1267, these coins were relegated to the Outremer in large quantities. The denomination is picked up by Guillaume II de Villehardouin and becomes the coinage of the Principality of Achaea around 1270 and in time it replaces the French tournois. Around 1285 the denomination is also minted at Thebes for the de la Roche Lords and Dukes of Athens. By the 1290s it's a common fixture in Greece, with mints of large output -- Glarentza, Corinth, Thebes, Athens(?), Lepanto -- and smaller "prestige" mints as Salona, Neopatras, etc. By the 1300 the Greek tournois is common fixture in the Angevin Southern Italy and in the 1380s at least one mint, Sulmona, issues tournois (tornesi) for the Angevins of Naples. The currency still goes back and forth between Southern Italy and Greece, so much so that the tornesi of Nicola di Monforte of 1461-1464 are sometimes found in Greece. This would be a very short, condensed and syntetic view of the tournois in Greece. Tzamalis goes in depth for some mints and issues, the early types up to Isabella de Villehardouin in Achaea and Guy II de la Roche in Athens. Lunardi is probably the most comprehensive source for the Genoese interests in all of the Levantine area, up to even Crimea and the Danube Delta. For Chios specifically there's also a piece I found interesting on the Zaccaria rule, under Palaiologan overlordship: A. Mazarakis - Some thoughts on the Chios Mint during the time of the Zaccaria Family rule 1304-1329.
Here is a tornese of Martino Zaccaria in Chios c. 1324-1329 (1328-1329): cf Lunardi S9, cf Cecchinato pp.79-80, cf Mazarakis p. 326, Δ2-3, Tzamalis F177 p. 248 This variation is only correctly described by Tzamalis.
Oh, @seth77, so that's where those improbabably late Italian ones came from. And the convergence of chronology and more precise geography makes the progression from the ones in the Frankish Levant that much more intuitive. Regarding those, I was thinking initially in terms of a more direct route from France, more via trade than the more circuitous route, with the layers of intervening polities and coinages. For instance, the Roman 'Senatorial' denaros that imitate the Champagne 'peigne' deniers, as attributable to the Champagne fairs (especially in Provins) as anything else.
