This page will be devoted to collect bibliographic resources, web links and images concerning pre-Roman ancient coins minted in Northern Italy (in particular, in the region that will become Gallia Cisalpina): tribes of this region include Insubres, Ligures, Cenomani and Boii. Since the main autoctone currency of this region consists of drachms imitative of the coinage of the Greek colony of Massalia, images and notes about the silver coinage of this city will also be included, as it will be the case for the other prototypes of Celtic imitative coins struck or circulating in the area.
Pieces of information about pre-Imperial period ancient coins hoards found in Northern Italy will also be included whenever possible.
Since images may be more telling than words, this is an example of a Celtic drachm attributable to the Cenomani tribe:
In my plan, this site will be completely bilingual (English/Italian). I'm even considering the possibility of a French version (not only because my French is better than my English, but also because there is an interesting French and Swiss literature about these coins). Unfortunately, many of the resources I'll quote will be nether-the-less available only in Italian version (I'll provide links with automatic translation to this material, but -even if this looks incredible ;-)- this kind of translation is even worse than my English!).
The reason why I'm putting online this page, almost before starting my work, is simple: I'll need many images of coins to complete my project and I hope that some people owing at least one Celtic coin from Northern Italy will find this page surfing the web and will be so kind to drop me an e-mail [federico.muras(AT)tiscali.it] and give me the permission to use the image of their coins.
The first contributor to this project I have to thank is Forum discussion board member Massanutten: he was the first one to kindly provide an image of an ancient coin attributable to the Boii (click on the image below to reach the coins gallery of Massanutten and having some more details about this coin):
This page is kindly hosted, free of charge, by Forum Ancient Coins. FORVM is a reputable dealer of ancient coins (see 1st link below) I would suggest you to take into account for your purchases, but FORVM also hosts many interesting articles and resources concerning ancient numismatics and history (2nd link) and a very active discussion board (3rd link), including a section in Italian (and one in Spanish):
