Andrew
Is that gold eid mar yours?? If so............I bow on bended knee.........wow.
Mark
Absolutely not. It is the long-term-loan example in the British Museum. Previously rejected by
Crawford based on
his view of a
cast in the
ANS many years ago, but now accepted by all as genuine:
I'm not sure I would like to have owned it and I slightly take offence at the idea that I might! It's not the sort of coin that gets me up in the morning. It's a dilettante's rather than an expert's coin. A flashy Ferrari, whose consumption would take the place of dozens of serious pieces. I'm more the sort of coin collector who relishes a low-production obscure variety of a Ford Escort produced only for the Singapore market in the 1970s but now
rare as hens teeth due to the propensity of those islanders to scrap their cars before they first need washing. Actually the most interesting thing about this coin is its ancient piercing. It was probably
rare and desirable even in ancient times and one could imagine a secret
Republican supporter wearing it under
his toga even as he chatted with
Augustus.
This was my
EID MAR (for regrettable reasons no longer in my
collection, but there you go). A better fit with my
collection I think. Long ago, a
numismatist whom I respected insulted my taste in coins for having acquired this, considering it the ugliest piece he'd ever seen. Sometime after, I disposed of it. Today I'd take
his insult as a compliment. EID MAR's are common and therefore should not consume too much of a collector's
budget, but this is the absolutely poorest example in existence so at least has a touch of
rarity about it (and didn't consume much
budget).
After a quick browse, I actually find your medal commemorating the de Medici assasination very interesting. Wherever did you get it?
This is my current
VIII.ID.IAN, which is a perfectly satisfactory slot replacement for the gold
aureus. Now this is my sort of piece.
Rare, historically amazing, not well known, obscure, and picked up at a bourse in York last year (some other list
members were with me at the time so will have seen it live):
Renaissance Medal. 1537AD. 23.6grams. Venetian school attributed to Gavino. Type copies Crawford 508/3 Obverse: hd Lorenzino de Medici r, LAVRENTIVS MEDICES. Commemorates Assassination of Alessandro de Medici in 1537 by the killer's cousin Lorenzino Reverse: cap of liberty between two daggers, VIII.ID.IAN below, i.e. 6th January or ante diem VIII Id. Ian. Very Rare.
Cessi 53. Toderi Vannel Medaglie 743. Attwood 891. Calvera 19 (not this copy). Original 16th century copy, cast in bronze bell metal.
On January 6, 1537 Lorenzino de Medici, assassinated his cousin, Duke Alessandro de 'Medici. He fled first to Turkey, then France and finally to Venice, where he was murdered by hired assassins of Cosimo I in 1548. The reverse is inspired by the famous denarius of Brutus, and just as with Brutus the type wishes to sing the praises of a tyrranicide.
Lorenzino de Medici was a writer, born in Florence, Italy, the son of Pierfrancesco II de Medici and Maria Soderini. He was educated at Camerino together with Cosimo and Alessandro de Medici. He and the latter were later involved in several public scandals involving their escapades. In 1526 Lorenzino was brought with Cosimo to Venice to escape the Landsknechts falling on Florence, and was also saved from the expulsion of the Medici from that city following the Sack of Rome which crushed the power of the most powerful member of the family, Pope Clement VII. After a period in Veneto, Bologna and Rome (where he gained the nickname Lorenzaccio, "Bad Lorenzo", for his habit of decapitating statues), he returned to his native city in 1530, after the end of the Imperial siege which installed Alessandro as duke.
Probably prompted by Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzino and the killer Scoronconcolo murdered duke Alessandro on January 5, 1537. Lorenzino entrapped Alessandro through the ruse of a promised arranged sexual encounter with Lorenzino's sister Laudomia, a beautiful widow. After this, he fled to Bologna, and from there to Turkey, France, and then Venice. He wrote a public defense of his actions (the Apologia), claiming that, as an ideal heir of Marcus Junius Brutus, dedication to human liberty had forced him to kill Alessandro. Cosimo I de' Medici became Duke of Florence, and condemned Lorenzino to death. An assassin in Cosimo's pay killed Lorenzino in 1548 in front of his lover's house at Campo San Polo, Venice.
Herbert Cahn noted in a fundamental article on the subject that the EID MAR denarius type has been prized by collectors and scholars since the Renaissance, being copied for this medal commemorating the murder of Alessandro de Medici in 1537 – see Bargello 489, but it was also celebrated in ancient times as well. Dio Cassius mentioned it in the 3rd century, and its reverse was copied on a denarius issued during the Civil Wars of 68-69 (RIC 24-25).
Of note also to the history of numismatics is that the date of this medal goes right back to the founding of modern numismatics, in fact predating the finding of the Consular Fasti on the Capitoline hill in 1545, which sparked the writing of many serious numismatic books such as that by Fulvius Orsini, because the dating of the Republican moneyers could for the first time be assigned with some precision. Thus the use of the Brutus EID MAR, prior to such publications, is quite extraordinary and does show just how famous a coin it has been through history.
