A Numismatic Surprise in Umbria, Italy: Ducal coins and medals on display

As every knows, numismatists seem to have a special radar that leads them directlyto coins, even when far away on vacation, somewhere with no advance knowledge ofnumismatics in the region. Such was the case for me, spending a couple weeks in Umbria, thecentral part of Italy. A day trip of an hour-and-change on a bus to the medieval cliff-face townof Gubbio led to the usual wandering of streets, stopping in small churches, looking at Italianclothes that could never possibly fit an American frame, grabbing a gelato or two in the summerheat and, of course, stopping in at museums and historical buildings.

One such building was theDucal Palace, built in the Renaissance style in 1470, literally atop pre-existing medievalbuildings, and is the only Renaissance building in this small city. The contents were stripped offand sold by later owners (including a wonderful painted studio that is now in the MetropolitanMuseum of Art in New York), so there is little there in the way of period furniture or originalpaintings, though the upper floor has a trove of paintings of the area owned by the city andprivate collectors.

My surprise was that on first entering there was a display of coins and medals, four nice-sizedcases that take up an entire, small room. The medals relate both to the owners of the palace overtime, but also a nice representative display of works of medallic art spanning the ItalianRenaissance. There are 37 medals on display, 7 of the Duke of Urbino Frederico da Montefeltro,and his family. There are numerous examples of medals by Pisanello and other major artisans ofthe era, and there are a couple gold examples as well (I do not know enough about the series tocomment on whether they are contemporary casts or ones made a bit later, but most areprovenance to museums and private collectors who loaned them). For those whose Italian, likemine, is non bene, the descriptions are given in both Italian and English.

For the two display cases of coins, there are 35 examples on display, ranging from the earliestcoinage of Gubbio (which though small was chosen as a site for the main mint after obtaining theright to coin money from Pope Martin V) in 1404, for a bit over a century, ending with thecoinage of Guidobaldo di Montefeltro in 1508. The coins are from private collections, but alsoboast some wonderful pedigrees, including Vittorie Emmanuel III, King of Italy until 1946. Byfar the most important coin is the unique silver lira made sometime after 1474, which bears anextremely realistic portrait of Frederico and was likely produced shortly after he received thattitle; it hails from the famous Nicolo Papadopoli collection, and is the single coin depicted in thephotos.

Even though centuries and thousands of miles removed from my own areas of specialty, theexhibit was enough for me to stop and examine - and admire the art and skill of the time.Sometimes half the fun of travel is wondering just how numismatics will find us.

Jeff adds: