Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 1660. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $90000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ITALY, Genoa. The Biennial Doges. Third coinage 1637-1797. AV Ten Doppie (66.69 gm). Cosmas Svarez, mintmaster. Dated 1641. V ETVREGE VEOSV 1641V CVSESV (V beneath ES), Madonna seated facing on clouds, head right, holding sceptre in extended right hand and cradling Child extending right hand, in left arm; Madonna being crowned with a circlet of nine stars by cherubs flying above / (cross potent)DVX(star)ET(star)GVBERNATORES(star)REIP(star)GEN, ornate cross pattée with central fleur and pellet in each concave bar; fleur above pellet at each end; with winged cherub head above plume in each quarter. CNI III pg. 354, 3 (this coin); G. Lunardi, Le monete della repubblica di Genova, 253; Pesce & Felloni pp. 121-22; Varesi 256/1 var (different mintmaster); Bellesia 89/A; Friedberg 426; KM 107. EF, lustrous, with an attractive mellow patina. Second known example. ($50,000)

Ex Franchini collection; Santamaria (6 June 1956), lot 130; Raffaele Dura and Giulio Sambon (Rome 26 March 1879), lot 944.

In 1638 the mint of the Most Serene Republic of Genoa reformed its coinage by replacing the obverse type depicting the castle with that of the Madonna and child and abandoning the name of Conrad II, king of the Romans, from whom Genova had received the right to strike coinage in 1139. This new obverse type celebrates the pronouncement of the Madonna as Regina di Genova (Queen of Genoa) in order to validate the newly acquired kingdom of Corsica by the maritime republic. The new gold coinage with various ostentatious multiple doppie coincides with the Republic’s apogee of economic and political strength and may be connected to the election of the 60th doge, Giovanni Agostino de Marini, on 14th August 1641.