UMBRIA DUCAL PALACE COIN AND MEDAL EXHIBIT

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

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

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

 

 

My surprise was that on first entering there was a display of coins and medals, four nice-sized cases that take up an entire, small room. The medals relate both to the owners of the palace over time, but also a nice representative display of works of medallic art spanning the Italian Renaissance. 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 of the era, and there are a couple gold examples as well (I do not know enough about the series to comment on whether they are contemporary casts or ones made a bit later, but most are provenance to museums and private collectors who loaned them). For those whose Italian, like mine, 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 earliest coinage of Gubbio (which though small was chosen as a site for the main mint after obtaining the right to coin money from Pope Martin V) in 1404, for a bit over a century, ending with the coinage of Guidobaldo di Montefeltro in 1508. The coins are from private collections, but also boast some wonderful pedigrees, including Vittorie Emmanuel III, King of Italy until 1946. By far the most important coin is the unique silver lira made sometime after 1474, which bears an extremely realistic portrait of Frederico and was likely produced shortly after he received that title; it hails from the famous Nicolo Papadopoli collection, and is the single coin depicted in the photos.

 

 

Even though centuries and thousands of miles removed from my own areas of specialty, the exhibit 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:

 

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