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<p>[QUOTE="ycon, post: 2973209, member: 91771"]First of all, a disclaimer: the coins I'm going to be talking about aren't exactly ancient. Any earlier and they'd clearly belong on this board, and any later and I would have posted them on moderns. There's not much about renaissance coinage that I've found in the archives of cointalk, so because of their tremendous artistry and historical importance I decided to post them here. I hope the good people in the ancient coins forum will be able to indulge me (get it, that was a papal joke <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />). </p><p><br /></p><p>Benvenuto Cellini was one of the most talented and colorful figures of the renaissance. His sculpture of Perseus has been posted here before, but he only started working as a sculptor in middle age (practically reinventing the technique of large scale bronze sculpture which hadn't been practiced in over a generation), in fact he trained as a goldsmith.</p><p><img src="http://everypainterpaintshimself.com/article_images_new/Perseus_Cellini_Loggia_dei_Lanzi_2005_09_13.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>There is only one surviving piece of his goldsmith work: the Saliera, or Salt Cellar in Vienna. [ATTACH=full]729847[/ATTACH]</p><p>The Saliera, I like to say, is the greatest salt shaker ever made! It may, indeed, be the greatest objet d'art ever made. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Vienna, you have to seek it out. No photograph can capture the way it glows, and the truly mind blowing nature of its workmanship.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is all preamble to the main point, which is that after the sack of Rome, Clement VII hired Cellini as the master of the mint! When I first read this in his autobiography (years ago) I remember putting down the book and finding myself on coinarchives.com for the first time, shocked to learn that some of Cellini's coins were still extant, and even available for purchase. I still didn't ever believe that <i>I </i>would be able to purchase one of his coins. I can only assume it was the dramatic toning and less-than-perfect condition that allowed me to get this at auction for ~half the price it usually sells for. This is the first "holy grail" coin I've purchased, and I'm completely thrilled.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]729836[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Rome. Clement VII (Giuliano de’Medici), 1523-1534. Doppio Carlino</b>, AR 5.01 g. CLEMENS·VII PONT· MAX Bearded bust left with ornate cope with figures of saints and medallion. Rv. Mintmark of Giacomo Balducci. QVARE – DVBITASTI (Matthew 14:31) Christ lifting St. Peter from the Sea. Muntoni 43. Berman 841. Rare. VF, profile of Clement slightly doubled.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ex. CNG-NAC 40, 1996, 218.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dies Engraved by Benvenuto Cellini.</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps the most exciting part is that Cellini actually describes this coin in his famous autobiography (Chapter XLVI):</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Meanwhile, I laboured assiduously at the work I was doing for the Pope, and also in the service of the Mint; for his Holiness had ordered another coin, of the value of two carlins, on which his own portrait was stamped, while the reverse bore a figure of Christ upon the waters, holding out his hand to S. Peter, with this inscription 'Quare dubitasti?' My design won such applause that a certain secretary of the Pope, a man of the greatest talent, called Il Sanga, was moved to this remark: Your Holiness can boast of having a currency superior to any of the ancients in all their glory. The Pope replied: Benvenuto, for his part, can boast of serving an emperor like me, who is able to discern his merit.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>(It should be added that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VII" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VII" rel="nofollow">Clement VII </a>is quite the character himself.)</p><p><br /></p><p>He describes it again in The Treatise on Goldsmithing, Chapter XIV: How to Make Steel Dies for Stamping Coins:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>“A third coin of my making was in silver, of the value of two carlins, on the one side of which was the head of the Pope, and on the other side St. Peter, just the moment after he has plunged into the sea at the call of Christ, and Christ stretches out his hand to him in most pleasing wise, and the legend to this was ‘Quare dubitasti?’”</i></p><p><br /></p><p>As I began to research this coin more in depth, it became apparent that there were no exact die matches I could find. What was more perplexing was that there seemed to be places where the dies would match completely, and other places where they would vary. <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=cellini+clement+vii+doppio+carlino&category=1-2&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&images=1&currency=eur&thesaurus=1&order=0&company=" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=cellini+clement+vii+doppio+carlino&category=1-2&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&images=1&currency=eur&thesaurus=1&order=0&company=" rel="nofollow">Have a look for yourself</a>. I wondered how this was possible--the answer is given by Cellini himself further on this same chapter:</p><p><br /></p><p>“…<i>And the tools with which you work have to be made specifically for the purpose. Thus for a head I should make the tool in two pieces, and for the the various figures on the reverse of a coin I should use a number of different pieces according to my discretion…</i> <i>The men who did the best work in coining always did the whole of the work upon either the punches or the matrices, and never once touched up the dies with either gravers or chisels, for that would be a great blunder, as all the various dies necessary for making many impressions of the same coins, would be a bit different…I must not forget to tell you, as I promised, how it was the ancients never turned out coins as well as we; & the reason of it was because they cut their dies out direct with goldsmith’s tools, gravers, chisels, punches, & that was very difficult for them to do, especially as the mints needed a large number of these dies…On one occasion when I was making the dies for Pope Clement in Rome, I had to turn out thirty of these [dies] in one day; had I gone to work in the manner of the ancients, I could not have produced two, nor would they have been as good</i>.”</p><p><br /></p><p>This explains how, for instance, one may find partial die-matches for these coins, where say, the figure of Christ and Peter will be identical, but the lettering may be in a relatively different position, or the face of Peter may be the same while his robes are entirely different, or the cope of Clement may be the same, but there are differences in his portrait. In this way it is also possible to reconstruct some of the individual punches that Cellini must have created and used in the making of his dies.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is exciting that so many original sources pertaining to this coin survive. For instance, the documents of the mint show that on April 16, 1529, Cellini had been nominated by the Pope as its sole engraver:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Dilecto filio Benvenuto Cellini Aurifici fiorentino: De acuitate ingenii virtute probitate et solerti scientia tua confidentes ac cupientes te favore prosegui grazioso officium conficendarum stamparum cudendi monetam pro tempore Zeccha alme urbis nostre cum honoribus oneribusque et emolumentis consuetis…… indignationis nostre pena aliquas stampas in Zeccha nostra nisi per manus dicti Benvenuti recipiant et admictant aut desuper monetam cudere audeant vel presumant</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Additionally, a payment order from 12 June 1529, survives in the State Archives of Florence, for twenty ducats to Cellini in his capacity as "new master of engraving."</p><p><br /></p><p>Besides this coin, Cellini designed two coins in gold for Clement VII that he describes in his writings (there are also another several attributed to him). These two are, I believe, unique-- I haven't been able to find what museum they're in, best guess would be the British museum or the Bargello. One depicts Clement on the obverse with Ecce Homo on the reverse, while the other has the novel and ingenious scene of Clement and the the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V bearing the weight of the cross, together, with Sts Peter and Paul on the reverse. Cellini tells us that this coin was struck with more gold in it than it was valued, so it was largely melted down and was very rare even by the time of his writing. These two coins are 4 and 7, respectively, in this plate from CNI. [ATTACH=full]729857[/ATTACH]</p><p>Finally, Cellini also minted coins for Alessandro de'Medici. He say of these "and because the duke was curly headed the people called these coins <i>e ricci del Duca Alexandro</i> (the duke's curls). <img src="https://www.coingallery.de/KarlV/Medici/Medici-11.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>This wonderful coin is my next holy grail!</p><p><br /></p><p>I hope you enjoyed this write up! Post your own renaissance or papal coins, or any you have with artist's designs-- I love signed ancient coins!</p><p><br /></p><p>(I did not take any of the photos used, but they are all copyright free, because the art works in question are all out of copyright.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="ycon, post: 2973209, member: 91771"]First of all, a disclaimer: the coins I'm going to be talking about aren't exactly ancient. Any earlier and they'd clearly belong on this board, and any later and I would have posted them on moderns. There's not much about renaissance coinage that I've found in the archives of cointalk, so because of their tremendous artistry and historical importance I decided to post them here. I hope the good people in the ancient coins forum will be able to indulge me (get it, that was a papal joke ;)). Benvenuto Cellini was one of the most talented and colorful figures of the renaissance. His sculpture of Perseus has been posted here before, but he only started working as a sculptor in middle age (practically reinventing the technique of large scale bronze sculpture which hadn't been practiced in over a generation), in fact he trained as a goldsmith. [IMG]http://everypainterpaintshimself.com/article_images_new/Perseus_Cellini_Loggia_dei_Lanzi_2005_09_13.jpg[/IMG] There is only one surviving piece of his goldsmith work: the Saliera, or Salt Cellar in Vienna. [ATTACH=full]729847[/ATTACH] The Saliera, I like to say, is the greatest salt shaker ever made! It may, indeed, be the greatest objet d'art ever made. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Vienna, you have to seek it out. No photograph can capture the way it glows, and the truly mind blowing nature of its workmanship. This is all preamble to the main point, which is that after the sack of Rome, Clement VII hired Cellini as the master of the mint! When I first read this in his autobiography (years ago) I remember putting down the book and finding myself on coinarchives.com for the first time, shocked to learn that some of Cellini's coins were still extant, and even available for purchase. I still didn't ever believe that [I]I [/I]would be able to purchase one of his coins. I can only assume it was the dramatic toning and less-than-perfect condition that allowed me to get this at auction for ~half the price it usually sells for. This is the first "holy grail" coin I've purchased, and I'm completely thrilled. [ATTACH=full]729836[/ATTACH] [B]Rome. Clement VII (Giuliano de’Medici), 1523-1534. Doppio Carlino[/B], AR 5.01 g. CLEMENS·VII PONT· MAX Bearded bust left with ornate cope with figures of saints and medallion. Rv. Mintmark of Giacomo Balducci. QVARE – DVBITASTI (Matthew 14:31) Christ lifting St. Peter from the Sea. Muntoni 43. Berman 841. Rare. VF, profile of Clement slightly doubled. Ex. CNG-NAC 40, 1996, 218. Dies Engraved by Benvenuto Cellini. Perhaps the most exciting part is that Cellini actually describes this coin in his famous autobiography (Chapter XLVI): [I]Meanwhile, I laboured assiduously at the work I was doing for the Pope, and also in the service of the Mint; for his Holiness had ordered another coin, of the value of two carlins, on which his own portrait was stamped, while the reverse bore a figure of Christ upon the waters, holding out his hand to S. Peter, with this inscription 'Quare dubitasti?' My design won such applause that a certain secretary of the Pope, a man of the greatest talent, called Il Sanga, was moved to this remark: Your Holiness can boast of having a currency superior to any of the ancients in all their glory. The Pope replied: Benvenuto, for his part, can boast of serving an emperor like me, who is able to discern his merit.[/I] (It should be added that [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VII']Clement VII [/URL]is quite the character himself.) He describes it again in The Treatise on Goldsmithing, Chapter XIV: How to Make Steel Dies for Stamping Coins: [I]“A third coin of my making was in silver, of the value of two carlins, on the one side of which was the head of the Pope, and on the other side St. Peter, just the moment after he has plunged into the sea at the call of Christ, and Christ stretches out his hand to him in most pleasing wise, and the legend to this was ‘Quare dubitasti?’”[/I] As I began to research this coin more in depth, it became apparent that there were no exact die matches I could find. What was more perplexing was that there seemed to be places where the dies would match completely, and other places where they would vary. [URL='https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=cellini+clement+vii+doppio+carlino&category=1-2&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&images=1¤cy=eur&thesaurus=1&order=0&company=']Have a look for yourself[/URL]. I wondered how this was possible--the answer is given by Cellini himself further on this same chapter: “…[I]And the tools with which you work have to be made specifically for the purpose. Thus for a head I should make the tool in two pieces, and for the the various figures on the reverse of a coin I should use a number of different pieces according to my discretion…[/I] [I]The men who did the best work in coining always did the whole of the work upon either the punches or the matrices, and never once touched up the dies with either gravers or chisels, for that would be a great blunder, as all the various dies necessary for making many impressions of the same coins, would be a bit different…I must not forget to tell you, as I promised, how it was the ancients never turned out coins as well as we; & the reason of it was because they cut their dies out direct with goldsmith’s tools, gravers, chisels, punches, & that was very difficult for them to do, especially as the mints needed a large number of these dies…On one occasion when I was making the dies for Pope Clement in Rome, I had to turn out thirty of these [dies] in one day; had I gone to work in the manner of the ancients, I could not have produced two, nor would they have been as good[/I].” This explains how, for instance, one may find partial die-matches for these coins, where say, the figure of Christ and Peter will be identical, but the lettering may be in a relatively different position, or the face of Peter may be the same while his robes are entirely different, or the cope of Clement may be the same, but there are differences in his portrait. In this way it is also possible to reconstruct some of the individual punches that Cellini must have created and used in the making of his dies. It is exciting that so many original sources pertaining to this coin survive. For instance, the documents of the mint show that on April 16, 1529, Cellini had been nominated by the Pope as its sole engraver: [I]Dilecto filio Benvenuto Cellini Aurifici fiorentino: De acuitate ingenii virtute probitate et solerti scientia tua confidentes ac cupientes te favore prosegui grazioso officium conficendarum stamparum cudendi monetam pro tempore Zeccha alme urbis nostre cum honoribus oneribusque et emolumentis consuetis…… indignationis nostre pena aliquas stampas in Zeccha nostra nisi per manus dicti Benvenuti recipiant et admictant aut desuper monetam cudere audeant vel presumant[/I] Additionally, a payment order from 12 June 1529, survives in the State Archives of Florence, for twenty ducats to Cellini in his capacity as "new master of engraving." Besides this coin, Cellini designed two coins in gold for Clement VII that he describes in his writings (there are also another several attributed to him). These two are, I believe, unique-- I haven't been able to find what museum they're in, best guess would be the British museum or the Bargello. One depicts Clement on the obverse with Ecce Homo on the reverse, while the other has the novel and ingenious scene of Clement and the the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V bearing the weight of the cross, together, with Sts Peter and Paul on the reverse. Cellini tells us that this coin was struck with more gold in it than it was valued, so it was largely melted down and was very rare even by the time of his writing. These two coins are 4 and 7, respectively, in this plate from CNI. [ATTACH=full]729857[/ATTACH] Finally, Cellini also minted coins for Alessandro de'Medici. He say of these "and because the duke was curly headed the people called these coins [I]e ricci del Duca Alexandro[/I] (the duke's curls). [IMG]https://www.coingallery.de/KarlV/Medici/Medici-11.jpg[/IMG] This wonderful coin is my next holy grail! I hope you enjoyed this write up! Post your own renaissance or papal coins, or any you have with artist's designs-- I love signed ancient coins! (I did not take any of the photos used, but they are all copyright free, because the art works in question are all out of copyright.)[/QUOTE]
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