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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ycon, post: 4464743, member: 91771&quot;][ATTACH=full]1112035[/ATTACH] </p><p><b>Julius II</b> (1503-1513) Julius II, Bologna. O/ IVLIVS • II • PONTIFEX • MAXIMVS • Bust of pope right, with cope. R/ S • P • BONON-IA • DOCET • San Petronio enthroned; below, the arms of Cardinale Legato Giovanni de’ Medici. [Enrico] Dotti, 1934; cfr. CNI X, p. 65 n. 73;Chimienti 2009, p. 195 n. 244 Dies attributed to Francesco Francia.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin, rare and beautiful, is both historically important and signifies important history. </p><p><br /></p><p>For me, it is most interesting from an art historical perspective. The dies were likely engraved by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Francia" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Francia" rel="nofollow">Francesco Francia</a>, the most important Renaissance artist from Bologna, and the master of its mint. Not only is it by one of the greatest Renaissance artists to work as a die engraver, but it also get a mention in the most important (and first book) book of art history, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Most_Excellent_Painters,_Sculptors,_and_Architects" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Most_Excellent_Painters,_Sculptors,_and_Architects" rel="nofollow">Lives of the Artists</a>, by Giorgio Vasari. </p><p><br /></p><p>Vasari writes of Francia: </p><p><br /></p><blockquote><blockquote><p>“But that in which he delighted above all, and in which he was truly excellent, was the making of dies for medals, wherein he was the rarest master of his day, as may be seen in some that he made with a <i>most lifelike head of Pope Julius II</i>… not to mention that he made medals of Signer Giovanni Bentivogli, in which he appears alive…As long as he lived he was ever Master of the Mint in Bologna, for which he made the stamps of all the dies, both under the rule of the Bentivogli and also during the lifetime of Pope Julius”</p><p><br /></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Julius_II" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Julius_II" rel="nofollow">Julius II</a>, is of course, the archetypal Renaissance pope, who was not only patron to Raphael and Michelangelo, but also a warrior who fought to centralize Italian power. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus" rel="nofollow">Erasmus of Rotterdam </a>wrote a dialogue about the Pope trying to use military force to gain entry into heaven, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Excluded_from_Heaven" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Excluded_from_Heaven" rel="nofollow">Julius Excluded from Heaven</a>. Disapproval of Julius&#039; behaviour as pope laid the groundwork for what would become the protestant reformation. He even featured in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli" rel="nofollow">Machiavelli</a>&#039;s the prince, who thinks his dominating personality trait was rashness and who blithely sums up: &quot;His early death spared him the experience of failure. Because if times had changed and circumstances demanded caution, he would have been finished&quot; (25.9)</p><p><br /></p><p>My coin was issued after Julius personally led the papal troops to Bologna to expel its tyrant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_II_Bentivoglio" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_II_Bentivoglio" rel="nofollow">Giovanni II Bentivoglio</a>. Bologna would remain a papal city all the way to 1796, when it was conquered by Napolean. </p><p><br /></p><p>I like to think of this coin as a miniature work of art, sitting alongside the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo&#039;s Moses as one of the masterpieces commissioned by the great Renaissance pope.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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