From the Gonzaga/Este Collection

271, Lot: 78. Estimate $1000. Sold for $2750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Vespasian. AD 69-79. Æ Quadrans (15mm, 2.19 g, 3h). Rome mint. Struck AD 77-78. IMP VESP AVG COS VIII, winged caduceus between crossed cornucopias / S C within laurel wreath; below SC, inlaid silver Gonzaga countermark in the form of an eagle in an oval field . RIC II 1017; BMCRE 741; BN 911. VF, dark green-brown patina. An important and historical collectible.

Property of Princeton Economics acquired by Martin Armstrong. Purchased privately from Classical Numismatic Group; Fürsten d'Este Collection.

The silver eagle collector’s mark found on the obverse of this and a number of other Roman imperial coins has generated much speculation regarding its owner. Originating with Cavedoni (Atti e Memorie Accademia di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti [1825]), who based his assumptions on an earlier statement of Maffei and the vague assertion of Eckhel, this mark was assigned to the d'Este family, a wealthy and powerful Renaissance family from the Emilia-Romana region of Italy, whose badge included an eagle. Such an attribution contradicted earlier numismatists, including Spanheim (Dissertationes de praestantia et usu Numismatum antiquorum [1717]), who asserted it was the mark of the Gonzagas, the rulers of Mantua, a city with an important ancient Roman connection (it had been the poet Vergil's birthplace). In 1433, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund granted Gian Francesco Gonzaga (1395-1444), the first Marquis, with the privilege of new coat-of-arms, which contained an imperial eagle badge. This device was included on the town's silver coinage for the next two centuries.

Simonetta and Riva (QT VIII [1979]) revisited the controversy, concluding the mark was that of the Gonzaga family. Such a mark served to inventory the piece to their collection, which, from the extant inventory, included a number of important Roman coins. Beginning in 1628, these coins were dispersed in order to fund the family's political and territorial ambitions.

In their follow-up article (QT XII [1983]), Simonetta and Riva presented a heretofore unknown 1653-1654 French narrative (Voyage d'Italie curieux et nouveau [Lyons, 1681]), as further evidence of the Gonzaga connection. Writing of his visit to Mantua, the author, Jean Huguetan, speaks of the coin collection having already been dispersed; these coins, however, can be recognized "by a small eagle with which they have been stamped (à une petite aigle dont on les avoit marquées). This statement supports Spanheim's later one regarding similar coins (ex insculpta in iis, Gonzagarum insigni, Aquila) in the possession of the d'Este dukes of Modena. While the d'Este had since married into the Gonzaga and had acquired specimens in early dispersal of the Mantuan collection, they have no specific association with this collector’s mark.