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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;stlnats, post: 25393221, member: 41066&quot;]And now for &quot;something completely different,&quot; for me.</p><p><br /></p><p>Recently I&#039;ve taken a break from pursuing US National Currency to add a couple of Papal coins.&nbsp; I usually focus on coins of the Rome mint of the late Baroque period (1650-1700 for me), but despite the condition, the reverse of this Bologna piece intrigued me enough to pick it up. It&#039;s a 50 bolognini (great name for a denomination, no?) or 1/2 of a &quot;Scudo Romano&quot; dated 1782. Scans were cobbled together from those provided by the seller.&nbsp; For those keeping score, its Muntoni 205 and Berman 3046.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1782, Pius VI made a trip to Austria to meet with emperor Joseph II who had made social and ecclesiastical reforms as a way of influencing appointments within the Catholic hierarchy (Wikipedia). Despite the trip, Pius was unsuccessful, and he returned home later that year.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse legend is &quot;ADVENTUS OPTIMI PRINCIPIS&quot; around what is described as a temple.&nbsp; The legend roughly translates as &quot;arrival of the best prince&quot; and echos a legend used by Probus and other late 3rd century emperors announcing or commemorating the visit of the emperor to a mint city.&nbsp; Pius did in fact stop in Bologna en route to Vienna and met with other church leaders.&nbsp; I did a presentation of roman types used, sometimes with modification, by the various popes so this was a nice tie for me.&nbsp;&nbsp; And while there&#039;s a number of generic, contemporary medals of Pius about the trip itself, none that I can find seem to be specific to the Bologna stop.&nbsp; So, I&#039;m still looking for a bit of documentation that this coin is in fact a commemorative of his visit, altho I&#039;m pretty sure it is.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also I&#039;m curious if the temple on the reverse is a specific one or just a generic type referencing the Church/Pope. My guess is that it&#039;s the latter.&nbsp; Muntoni and Berman merely refer to it as a temple and a similar temple is used as a design device on other coins of the period (cf the illustrations in Berman 2896, 2930,2958, 3220, 3223, 3255-6, etc).</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;d appreciate hearing if anyone has insight into either question. At any rate, altho not in the best condition, the little coin did and does provide a lot of entertainment for the price of a common, lower grade national.&nbsp; What fun!</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1626106[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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