Renaissance Portraiture And The Teston

Late in the 15th century, Europe emerged from its "bullion famine," and began striking a new, larger type of silver coin featuring a large portrait of the sovereign. Portraiture of important persons was a notable innovation of the Renaissance. Most previous art (before early 15th century) had stuck to sacred themes, reflecting the persavive influence of religion in medieval Europe.

The firsts of these new types were made in Italy, and nicknamed "testone," literally "big head" coins. This naming was picked up by the French as "teston," the English as "testoon," and became a permanent feature of the European numismatic landscape for the next century.

While Wikipedia will tell you that the first one was produced in Milan by Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Philip Grierson disagrees, pointing instead to this 1 lira coin of Niccolo Tron struck 1472-1473 in Venice, the largest silver coin (6.5 gr.) for standard circulation produced at that time in western Europe (Paolucci #2, N#116370):



As it is commonlty referred to as the lira tron (rather than a teston), maybe it's best considered as the "proto-teston." For Venice, the image was a radical departure from the normal posture of a generic doge kneeling before Saint Mark, and apparently was a bridge too far for the ruling council of the Republic. After Tron's death, they ruled that no coin could portray the doge in any posture other than the traditional one.

Interestngly there is no contemporary painting of Tron for comparison to the engraver's art on the coin.

I think we have other CCF members with examples of this genre to show (we are talking about a late-15th to 16th century portrait coin of 6-10 grams). Let's show them, starting with Italy, then moving to France, and the rest of Europe (and maybe follow at the end with renaissance portraits we like, regardless of the size of coin!).

Moderators: if this fits better elsewhere please feel free to move, but the intent is to cover roughly 1470-1575.