81, Lot: 85. Estimate $500. Sold for $765. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

LOMBARDIC KINGDOM OF ITALY. Aistulf. 749-756. Æ Follis (11mm, 1.31 gm). Struck 751/2. Ravenna mint. Draped bust of Aistulf to front, bearded, hair centrally parted and wearing small diadem surmounted with cross, holding globus cruciger / Large cross between [ANNO] and I (year 1); above, cross and in exergue, [R]AV. MEC 324. E. Ercolani Cocchi, Le monete del museo nazionale di Ravenna, 1984, 336. Apparently the fifth known example and one of only two not in public collections. VF, mottled green patina.

Aistulf’s expulsion of the Byzantine forces from the exarchate and capture of Ravenna in 751 was followed by demands of suzerainty over Rome itself as part of his enlarged dominion. When Pope Stephen III’s appeal for help from the eastern emperor Constantine V was answered with only a letter of remonstrance sent to Aistulf, Stephen made the momentous move of appealing to Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, on whom in 754 was bestowed the imperial title of patricius Romanorum.