Asiatic Coins

Relief and Lettering.

Those qualities which make a coin most serviceable as currency are not necessarily favourable to its beauty as a work in relief. The Greeks, for instance, being pre-eminently sculptors, made their coins in high relief. They thus suffered in circulation. It was only in the 4th century of our era that the relief of coins began to become flat, making way for the flat pattern-like treatment which is characteristic of the middle ages. That was not due to a recognition of the suitability of such treatment so much as to the decay of technique. In the use of lettering the Byzantines made an effort at decoration (P1. IV.-I), but the finest development of lettering as an art on coins was left to the Muslims (Pl. IV.-i3). In the 16th century print ing wrought disaster on medal lettering.

The 13th Century.

Frederick II. attempted to revive the older Roman style; his gold augustale (P1. 111.-16) has a head in medium relief, inspired by the Roman gold of the Constantinian period. But this was a false start. The beautiful Gothic coinages of the r4th century in France, England, the Low Countries, Italy, etc. (P1. IV.-2-7), show the high-water mark of the flat pattern style, which is by far the most suitable for a coinage which has to be packed in rouleaux and circulates widely. The facing head ousted the profile under the Lower empire (Pl. 111.-9). In obedience to a Roman principle, the frontal pose was alone proper to the imperial majesty.

Towards the end of the 15th century the influence of the medal, for which the profile was alone suitable, made itself felt on the coinage and the facing head thus practically disappeared. The early testoons of the Sforzas (Pl. IV.-9) at Milan are the supreme example of profile treatment in very low relief, the finest com bination of portraiture with decorative treatment that coinage can show. So far as mere engraving was concerned the highest ex cellence was probably reached in the 17th century by artists like Briot and Thomas Simon (Pl. IV.-14) ; and, so far as mere finish is concerned, a Pistrucci, a Wyon or an Andrieu leaves nothing to be desired.

The problem of composing within a circular field was solved by the ancients. The posing of a head, the combining of two or more heads in a group, whether they are jugate or addorsed or opposed, were the main problems of the obverse. The jugate or accollate position was not attempted until the 3rd century B.C. (Pl. 111.-4), and does not become common until Roman times. The confronted pose offers no difficulty, and pleased the Roman taste for symmetry (Pl. III.-6); but the Greeks disliked it and

it is not found on their coins before Roman times. The Greeks liked symmetry, but it had to be dynamic and full of movement ; while they knew all that need be known about what is called heraldic opposition (Pl. 2), and occasionally used it it never played much part in their designs.

The remarkable outburst of artistic effort in England in the middle of the 8th century, when a real profile portrait head of Offa appears on his coins (Pl. at a time when the designs of all other parts of Europe were entirely without merit, had no duration or repercussion. Not even the excellent ornamental de signs on the Anglo-Saxon coinage of this time (Pl. 111.-12), due perhaps to Irish influence, inspired Continental contemporaries to efforts for better coins. Equally without effect was such an innovation as the type of the sovereign seated in majesty on Edward the Confessor's penny (Pl. 111.-14), as on the Great Seal. France had to wait two centuries until Philip II. (127o-85) ventured to introduce the majesty-type (Pl. 111.-22). The Nor man Conquest caused a definite set-back in English art.

Germany.—In the next period we must turn to German lands to find the first signs of relief from the degradation of the en graver's art. About 1125 the curious pieces known as bracteates (Pl. 111.-15), extremely thin and bearing on one side only a type which shows through on the reverse, began to be produced in Thuringia and Lower Saxony. The designs—the figure of the king seated facing, the half-figures of king and queen side by side, the emperor on horseback, the figures of saints, often in an architectural setting, and the like—are a not unworthy reflection of the greater art of the Romanesque period. The style reaches its zenith in the second half of the 12th century under Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI., when the coins sometimes attain a diameter of 5o millimetres. It was, however, in the middle of the 13th century that the real revival began.

A similar effort was made by the little republic of Ragusa in the same century. But other States, though they wisely did not attempt to attain high relief, did begin to play with the idea of making their coins interesting or significant. Florence placed on the gold coins, which were to become world-famous as florins, its graceful lily and the figure of St. John the Baptist (in 1252). Venice started its equally famous gold sequins or ducats in 1280 with the interesting types of the figure of Christ blessing in a border of stars, and of the doge receiving the gonfalon from St.