Sale: CNG 61, Lot: 2196. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 25 September 2002.  Sold For $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

DUCHY OF NAPLES. STEPHEN III. 821-832. Æ Follis (1.90 gm). SCS-IAN, bust of St. Gennaro facing, wearing tunic and cloak / Cross potent on two steps flanked by S-T. MEC 14, 1135 (Stephen III); Sambon, Repertorio 1912, 282 (Stephen III); cf. Pannuti-Riccio 1 (Stephen II); CNI XIX, pg. 6, 4 (Stephen II). Rare. Good VF, dark patina.($2000)

Ex NAC and Spink Taisei Auction 52, (1994), lot 1135.

The dukes of Naples probably achieved their independence from the empire, as did the Popes in Rome, in the late eighth century, though, as at Venice, some fiction of continued allegiance was occasionally performed. St. Gennaro, the bishop of Benevento who was martyred at Pozzuoli during the persecutions of Diocletian, is to this day regarded as the patron and protector of Naples, and therefore fittingly replaced the image of the eastern emperor in the early ninth century.