Looks Italian? | Byzantine Follis

It looks Byzantine. This coin seems to be a good match.



Nicephorus III. AE Class I Anonymous Follis. IX XC, Nimbate bust of Christ facing, raising right hand / Latin cross with X at center, globule and two pellets at each extremity.

http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sb/sb1889.html

Follis is what the coin is called and nimbate refers to the halo around the head.

To clarify: "follis" is the name given to the denomination.

The follis was originally a large Roman silver-plated coin back in the early 300's AD. After being shrunk into oblivion by the financial collapse of the Empire in the mid-300's AD, the follis was reintroduced at the start of the "Byzantine period" as a large bronze coin with face value 40 nummi. Early Byzantine folles (that's the plural; one follis, lots of folles) have a large "M" on them; "M" is the Greek numeral for "40". Later, religious themes such as the portrait of Christ, or inscriptions naming Christ or the Emperor were used instead. The copper coins of the Empire continued to be called "folles" until the monetary reform of Emperor Alexius I in 1092 AD.

Actually, we are not sure of what the coins were called around A.D. 300. Around this time there is evidence that a bag of 12,500 denarii was called a follis, but we are not sure that an individual coins was called a follis. There is as much, or better evidence that the coins were called nummi, or nummus for singular. However, the term follis is widely used and accepted.

The first actual reference that refers to a single coin as a follis is from A.D. 498, in which the Comes Sacrarum Largitonum of Anastasius talked about coins called either terunciani or follares. After this, the word appears in several documents and was surely a standard unit.