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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sulla80, post: 8102337, member: 99456&quot;][ATTACH=full]1408974[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Genoese Caffa, Filippo Maria Visconti </b>(AD 1421-1435), AR Asper. 0.77g, 15mm.</p><p><b>Obv: </b>DV_M.D.:CAF; the arms of Genoa in a beaded oval of four arches, three dots to side and below of portal.</p><p><b>Rev:</b> Small Jujid tamga with 1 dot - tamga of the ruling Mongol Khan.&nbsp; Circular Arabic legend, السلطان العادل محمد خان (The Just Ruler, Muhammad Khan).</p><p><br /></p><p>Caffa was a Silk Road trading post on the northern shore of the Black Sea in Mongol territory controlled by Genoa.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1408990[/ATTACH]</p><p>Caffa is often described as the first European controlled city to be afflicted with the Black Death in AD 1346 - it is often cited as an early example of biological warfare.&nbsp; This account comes from Gabriele de’ Mussi who tells of the Mongol siege of Caffa in which they catapulted plague infected bodies into the city.</p><p><br /></p><p>For a revised view on this story and the spread of the plague see Hanna Barker, &quot;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/711596" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://doi.org/10.1086/711596" rel="nofollow">Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain, Embargoes, and Yersinia pestis in the Black Sea, 1346–48</a>&quot;, Speculum, The journal of the Medieval Academy of America, Volume 96, Number 1, January 2021, University of Chicago Press.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin was issue by Filippo Maria Visconti.&nbsp; The Visconti family took control of Genoa (and with it Caffa) for Milan.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Next:</b> medieval and not European[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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