Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XI 7 April 2016
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Italy, Sicily. Carlo I d'Angiò (1266-1285) AV 8 Tarì. Messina, c. 1266. + K DEI GRACIA, horseman with drawn sword galloping right, two lis on caparison; 5 pointed star below /+ REX SICILIE, long Latin cross; at sides, IC CX / NI KA; below, two triangles of pellets. MEC 14, p 201, fig. 7; Spahr 15; H. Kowalski, I reali di Carlo I d'Angiò, Rome 1979, pp. 22-3, figs 4-5; CNI pl. 11, 5; MIR Sicilia, 145/1; Friedberg cf. 653a (5 tarì). 8.55g, 17mm, 5h.
Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare; one of the heaviest known multiples.
Carlo I d'Angiò was the last monarch of the kingdom of Sicily to issue tarì and he did so in spectacular fashion by issuing early in his reign a relatively heavy coinage reproducing the galloping knight, the subject of his seal (see Kowalsky p. 23, fig. 6). This issue was also known as a 'cavallino', and continued those of the Hohenstaufen in being 16.3 carats fine, struck at irregular weights.
The word tarì derives from the Arabic word meaning 'fresh', i.e. newly struck, a frequently used qualifying adjective for a coin in legal documents and thought by Italian numismatists of the 19th and 20th centuries to be the name of the coin itself. Tarì were ultimately derived from Arabic quarter-dinar or ruba'i, the standard gold coin (ideally weighing 1.05g) in circulation in the Emirate of Sicily. Tarì continued to be issue after the Norman invasion of 1061, but as time went by the gold content was increasingly reduced and the coins were struck at random weight, which means that must they have been traded as bullion.
Charles of Anjou, founder of the Angevin dynasty in Naples, was the youngest son of Louis VIII and brother of King Louis IX of France. He took part in Louis IX's crusades to Egypt in 1248 and Tunisia in 1270. After obtaining Provence by marriage in 1246, which extended his influence into Piedmont, he became a senator of Rome (1263, 1265–78) and undertook to champion the papal cause against Manfred, the Hohenstaufen who had usurped the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in 1258. In reward, he was crowned king of Naples and Sicily in 1266 by Pope Clement IV, which territories he had already received as a papal grant in 1262. Charles defeated and killed Manfred at the Battle of Benevento in 1266 and then defeated and executed the last of the Hohenstaufen line, Conradin, later that year. As leader of the Guelphs, or papal faction, he gained political hegemony in Italy and won suzerainty over several cities in Tuscany, Piedmont, and Lombardy, but his overbearing policies led to a cooling of his relations with the papacy. Planning to establish his own empire, he allied himself with the deposed Latin ruler of Constantinople, Baldwin II, against Greek Michael VIII and fought for years in the Balkans. Corfu, Epirus, and Albania were taken. The crushing taxes necessitated by his wars and his appointment of oppressive French officials to exact them led to the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. The ensuing war against the Sicilian rebels and Peter III of Aragón, chosen by the rebels as king of Sicily, continued after his death in Foggia in 1285 under Charles's son and successor, Charles II, then a prisoner in Catalonia, so the regency passed to his French cousin Robert II of Artois, son of the younger brother of St. Loius.
Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare; one of the heaviest known multiples.
Carlo I d'Angiò was the last monarch of the kingdom of Sicily to issue tarì and he did so in spectacular fashion by issuing early in his reign a relatively heavy coinage reproducing the galloping knight, the subject of his seal (see Kowalsky p. 23, fig. 6). This issue was also known as a 'cavallino', and continued those of the Hohenstaufen in being 16.3 carats fine, struck at irregular weights.
The word tarì derives from the Arabic word meaning 'fresh', i.e. newly struck, a frequently used qualifying adjective for a coin in legal documents and thought by Italian numismatists of the 19th and 20th centuries to be the name of the coin itself. Tarì were ultimately derived from Arabic quarter-dinar or ruba'i, the standard gold coin (ideally weighing 1.05g) in circulation in the Emirate of Sicily. Tarì continued to be issue after the Norman invasion of 1061, but as time went by the gold content was increasingly reduced and the coins were struck at random weight, which means that must they have been traded as bullion.
Charles of Anjou, founder of the Angevin dynasty in Naples, was the youngest son of Louis VIII and brother of King Louis IX of France. He took part in Louis IX's crusades to Egypt in 1248 and Tunisia in 1270. After obtaining Provence by marriage in 1246, which extended his influence into Piedmont, he became a senator of Rome (1263, 1265–78) and undertook to champion the papal cause against Manfred, the Hohenstaufen who had usurped the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in 1258. In reward, he was crowned king of Naples and Sicily in 1266 by Pope Clement IV, which territories he had already received as a papal grant in 1262. Charles defeated and killed Manfred at the Battle of Benevento in 1266 and then defeated and executed the last of the Hohenstaufen line, Conradin, later that year. As leader of the Guelphs, or papal faction, he gained political hegemony in Italy and won suzerainty over several cities in Tuscany, Piedmont, and Lombardy, but his overbearing policies led to a cooling of his relations with the papacy. Planning to establish his own empire, he allied himself with the deposed Latin ruler of Constantinople, Baldwin II, against Greek Michael VIII and fought for years in the Balkans. Corfu, Epirus, and Albania were taken. The crushing taxes necessitated by his wars and his appointment of oppressive French officials to exact them led to the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. The ensuing war against the Sicilian rebels and Peter III of Aragón, chosen by the rebels as king of Sicily, continued after his death in Foggia in 1285 under Charles's son and successor, Charles II, then a prisoner in Catalonia, so the regency passed to his French cousin Robert II of Artois, son of the younger brother of St. Loius.