The height of the Renaissance a Firenze on a very specific Fiorentine coinage

In 1505, Michelangelo left Florence for Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II. As such, he'd embark in one of humanity's greatest artistic endeavors - the painting of the Sistine Chapel. But what he had left in Florence was no less spectacular -- the larger than life statue of David was standing in front of the 'Palazzo Vecchio', a monument to both Michelangelo's genius and Florence's leading place in this new adventure we'd call later on the Renaissance. The fundamentalist and puritanical rule of Savonarola had been toppled (1498) and the world (and Florence in it) seemed ready to move forward. The administration was also changing to a more civil form, with the help of the old 'patrizi fiorentini' (the Medici had not yet been reinstated).

The boom was also felt by the common folk and this was a time when people felt their own input meant something, as local projects put money in motion and in the purses of the Florentines at home. Part of this flux of money that saw a dramatic push in the early 16th century was in the form of these fractional 'grossi bianchi' -- the quattrini (or carzie), scarce to rare today, but likely very common and useful back then. In fact the series was struck from 1504 to 1509.



AE22mm, 1.11g, 361/1000 billon quattrino di grosso bianco (o carzia), Firenze mint, 2nd semester of 1505
+ . F L O R E N T I A . + .; large Florentine lily
+ . S . I O A N - N E S . F; Saint John the Baptist standing facing, flanked in left field at his shoulder by the shield with the Pepi coat-of-arms and F.
MIR 93/4, BERN II, 3518/22, CNI XII 335/6.


The Pepi were one of those 'patrizi' called upon to reestablish secular and civil rule in the city after the Savonarola episode. They had been 'priori di Firenze' and 'gonfalonieri di giustizia' in Florence since the late 13th century.


Pepi coat of arms on Via de' Pepi in Firenze

In the second semester of 1505, one of them, Francesco di Quirico di Giovanni Pepi had this coinage minted, along with other denominations, marking it with his family coat of arms and his initial F at the shoulder and head of Saint John the Baptist.

 

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Terrific coin and very enlightening writeup, @seth77. The seamless fluency with which you integrate the numismatics and the history is truly admirable. ...No, I have zero coins, either of Florence or of the the period, but from here, your contribution (along with more of your earlier ones than I can keep up with) is the more valuable for that.

 

I figured it's been a minute since my last thread and this coin stands out as an unusual and scarce apparition.