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

40 The Coins of Europe
The figure of .the patron-saint, the symbol of the Cross, and
the portrait and titles of the rulers or government, are
prevailing characteristics on early numismatic monuments.
At Venice, St. Mark at ; Naples, St. Januarius at
; Florence,
St John ;
at Genoa, in Hungary, in Bavaria, the Virgin
Mary and in
; Marisfeldt, in Russia, at Saluzzo, Mantua,
Ferrara, and elsewhere, St. George and so ; through the
Calendar strike us as monotonous ;
and we turn with a
feeling of relief and satisfaction to a view of some city, a
piece of architecture, a shield of arms, even if rather puzzling
and mysterious, or to the Wolf and Twins, or the Three
Graces, on coins of Piacenza. The culture of Florence,
Urbino, and Ferrara, and the wealth, taste, and opportunities
of the Venetians, might have led us to look for some
digression from commonplace, yet there is only the striking
series of Medicean portraits in the one case, and in the other
the memorial of the Battle of Lepanto in the shape of the
Giustina where, in lieu of a battle-scene or other suitable
embellishment, we get nothing but a figure of the saint, on
whose day the engagement took place. At Venice the
denominations are unusually numerous but the
; spirit of
invention was absent, and the types were differentiated to
the most limited extent.
The adoption of St. George by Russia and by Ferrara
suggests
the mention of two curious coincidences. In a
grosso of Ercole I. D'Este of Ferrara (1471-1505) the
reverse exhibits a horseman derived from some ancient
Greek medal ;
but in a danaro of the same prince the type
has been altered to St. George and the Dragon. In the
coinage of a region at that period in every sense so distant
from Italy as Russia, the myth evidently originated in an
equally casual way. A denga of Alexander of Poland, struck
for Lithuania (1501-1 506), bears on one side simply a horseman
in one of Ivan the
; Terrible, Duke of Muscovy
(1533-84), there is a spear in the rider's hand and a vestige
of a monster below ;
and in a lo-kopek piece of Peter the
Great (1682-1725), struck about 1704, the whole legend is
displayed. Yet even then there was some degree of