W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Introduction
2 I
autonomous coins of the republics and states gradually
formed within those limits ; 3, the money of the French,
Spanish, and Austrian occupiers ;
and 4, that of the two
kingdoms as constituted in 1804 and 1860, of which the
latter at all events removed the stigma conveyed in the
epigram describing Italy as " a geographical expression."
The foundations of the monetary systems of Northern
Italy were almost undoubtedly German or Teutonic, and
were far less indebted to classical suggestion and Oriental
feeling than the southern portion, or than the region within
which the Merovingian family of gold tricntes circulated.
Ages elapsed before the Venetians resorted to Byzantine
models ;
the latest researches have identified twenty - four
varieties of the denier or danaro produced under imperial
control from the ninth to the twelfth century and the
;
other portions of this division of the Peninsula conducted
their transactions where specie was demanded with descriptions
of money on which there is no distinct trace of Greek,
Roman, or Oriental taste. At the period of the Renaissance,
the autonomous currency of some of the states exhibited
proofs of the study and appreciation of ancient numismatic
art, modified by contemporary requirements but the noble
;
examples of medallic work, produced by such men as
Leonardo da Vinci, Pisanello, Francia, and Cellini, under
the auspices of generous patrons, were virtually as original
as any of the other cinquecento masterpieces in oil, marble,
or bronze. These great artists, instead of servilely and
unskilfully copying the coins of the ancients, as the British,
Gaulish, and Merovingian moneyers had severally done,
sought to shew the world that they could equal
if not
surpass them.
With the South, including Sicily, the case stood somewhat
differently, owing to the Lombard settlement in the
sixth century at Beneventum and the adoption of Merovingian
patterns, and to the successive conquests of Sicily and
Apulia by the Arabs, the Normans, the French, the Spaniards,
as well as by the Germans. These great and frequent
political changes could not be unattended by striking numis-