Italian Coins

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Obverse of 1873 Italian 5 Lira

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Reverse of 1873 Italian 5 Lira

Pre-Roman Italy
The name ‘Italy’ is believed to have originated from the Oscan word Víteliú meaning ‘land of young cattle’. Prior to the rise of Rome to its later hegemonic state, Italy was home to many different cultures and civilisations, including the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbris and many others. In addition, many colonies were established by the Greeks in southern Italy and in Sicily from the 8th Century BC and onwards.

Rise of Rome
The Latins, one of the Italic tribes, occupied the area in which Rome was founded. The origins of Rome itself are unfortunately shrouded in legend. The legend suggests that Rome was founded by Romulus, who became its first King in 753 BC.* Rome was ruled as a Kingdom until 509 BC, when the last King, Tarquinus Superbus was deposed. Tarquinus Superbus was supposedly a violent tyrant and his son, Sextus Tarquinius had raped Lucretia, the wife and daughter of two powerful Roman Senators. Thereafter, the Latin word for king, ‘Rex’, came to have negative connotations. Thereafter, Rome became a republic governed by the Senate and by elected magistrates. Under the republican system, Rome became a very successful city state, and began to expand its territories and holdings throughout Italy and beyond.
Rome fought for centuries for control over the entire Italian peninsula, which was contested by the Greeks, Gauls, and Carthaginians, as well as by rival Italian city-states. By the late 2nd Century BC, Rome effectively dominated the entire Italian peninsula, although most Italians outside of Rome did not enjoy the same rights as Roman citizens. The Italian cities eventually revolted against Rome because of this lack of equality. Between 91 BC and 88 BC, the Social War was fought between Rome and the Italian Cities. The Romans emerged victorious militarily, but were forced to grant Roman citizenship to all Italians in order to prevent a similar revolt in future.

Marian Reforms
By the 1st century BC, Rome had expanded its holdings to encompass not just Italy, but much of the known world. These holdings brought a lot of wealth to Rome but put an enormous strain on the Roman Army, which had to maintain a presence in all of the conquered provinces in order to protect them from outside attack and to discourage internal revolt. Originally, only Roman citizens who were property owners and who had the means to supply their own weapons and armour were permitted to join the Roman Army. They were only expected to serve for a limited time during the year before returning home to tend to their crops or other business at home. It became obvious that Rome’s Empire required a large standing army of professional soldiers drawn from the masses in order to garrison the far-flung provinces of the Roman Republic. Accordingly, the Consul, Gaius Marius, sponsored a law passed in 107 BC that authorised the recruitment of non-landholding Romans into the Army.
The consequences of this law would eventually undermine the Republic and lead to the creation of the Empire.

Decline of the Republic
The Marian reforms led to the creation of armies that were better trained and gained more experience than their part-time predecessors. However, their landless status made them more dependent and more closely connected with their commanders than had previously been the case. They had no means other than their army pay, and as a consequence, expected to be given land to provide them with an income when they eventually retired. Much of this land was to come from conquered provinces, which helped to ‘Romanise’ the local area, but the loyalty of the Roman legionaries now lay with their commanders rather than the Roman state, and many Roman commanders realised this, including Gaius Marius himself. The 1st Century BC was a time of turbulence and civil war as various Roman commanders used men under their command to force their will upon the Senate.

Rise of Julius Caesar and the End of the Republic
One of these commanders, Julius Caesar, eventually succeeded in supplanting the Republic. Caesar was a highly successful general and orator, who had formed an alliance with two other pre-eminent Romans; Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome and Pompey, Rome’s then most successful general. They formed a triumvirate which lasted until the death of Crassus at the hands of the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. An uneasy duumvirate continued with Caesar and Pompey until 51 BC, when Caesar ‘crossed the Rubicon’ with his army of battle-hardened legions, fresh from campaigning in Gaul. The Civil War between Caesar and the Conservative Optimates (allied with Pompey) ended in triumph for Caesar by 48 BC, and Pompey was killed that year as a fugitive in Egypt.
Caesar had now attained unchallenged power in Rome and had destroyed the power of the Senate. However, he did not enjoy this power for long, as he was assassinated in 44 BC by disgruntled former Optimate senators who feared he was about to crown himself as King of Rome. Sadly for the tyrannicides, their actions did not lead to the restoration of a truly republican government. Caesar’s lieutenant, Marcus Antonius, and Caesar’s heir, Octavian soon overcame the newly raised Optimates army of Caesar’s assassins and cemented the new changed order. Marcus Antonius and Octavian fought their own battle between each other during the 30s BC, and Octavian eventually emerged triumphant in 30 BC, changing his name to Caesar Augustus and ruling as Emperor (or Imperator, ‘Great General’) until his death in 14 AD. Although Augustus was granted supreme power, he never dared to grant himself the title of ‘King’ and all Roman Emperors until the time of Diocletian maintained the polite fiction that Rome remained a republic, rather than an absolute monarchy.

Later Roman Empire
Roman Italy remained relatively peaceful ( apart from suffering briefly from the odd ‘bad emperor’ such as Caligula and Nero) until the 2nd Century AD. The terrors and destructiveness of warfare was largely confined to the frontier provinces far away from Italy itself. However, during the 3rd Century Rome entered into a period of extreme instability and civil strife following the assassination of Emperor Caracalla in 217 AD. The destabilisation of Roman Government touched every corner of the Empire, including Italy, as one soldier-emperor after another fought for control of the Empire in the face of rival usurpers, rebels and secessionists.
The reign of Diocletian and the implementation of the Tetrachy (rule of four, which divided Rome between two senior Augustii and two junior Caesarii) brought some measure of stability back, although this didn’t last long, and soon after Diocletian’s retirement in 305, Rome once again collapsed into anarchy and civil war until Constantine united the Empire under his sole reign and started the process of converting the Empire to Christianity from 324 AD.

Constantine, His Successors and the Collapse of the Western Empire
Constantine moved the Primary capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople (Istanbul, in modern-day Turkey). Rome and Italy were therefore no longer the centre of the Empire. By the start of the 5th century Barbarian incursions had begun to plague Italy, and the Western Imperial court had moved itself from Rome to Ravenna, which was easier to defend. Rome itself was sacked twice during this period, once in 410 by Visigoths, and again in 455 by the Vandals.
The Roman Empire in the west collapsed in 476 when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate by Odoacer, a Germanic warlord, who ruled in the name of a usurper named Julius Nepos until the latter’s death in 480. Odoacer ruled as ‘King of Italy’ until he was defeated and killed by the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Ravenna.

Byzantine Rule and the Division of Italy
The Ostrogoths fought with the Byzantines for control of Italy, until the Byzantines under the Emperor Justinian finally defeated the Ostrogoths and retook the Italian Peninsula for the Roman Empire by 554. However, Italy did not remain in Byzantine hands for long, as the Lombards arrived in Northern Italy in 568. A prolonged struggle began between the Byzantines and the Lombards (and later the Franks, Normans and Saracens) for control of Italy. By 1085, the Byzantines had been completely expelled from their last remaining strongholds in southern Italy by the Normans, who had established the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria in southern Italy in 1071, which eventually merged with the County of Sicily to become the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130.
The rest of Italy was also divided between many different Kingdoms and states that emerged and fell through time until the re-unification of Italy. Of these, some of the most important included; the Republic of Venice (a powerful city-state and maritime power) Genoa (a rival of Venice), the Kingdoms of Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Piedmont, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal States (consisting of the lands in central and northern Italy under the control of the Catholic Papacy).

Italian Nationalism
Despite the shared language and culture of the various Italian states, it was not until the early 19th century that pan-Italian nationalism began to become a serious force in Italian politics. Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi became leading figures in the Italian nationalist movement, and during the 1830s began to agitate through organisations such as ‘Young Italy’ for a United Italian Republic, instigating uprisings against the various regional Italian monarchies.
Crucially, pan-Italian nationalism appealed to large sections of the business population because tariff barriers and haphazard railway connections hampered trade and economic development at a time of rapid industrialisation taking place elsewhere in Europe.
The revolutions of 1848 led to an increase in support of liberalisation and Italian unity, and many Italian monarchies were compelled to relax censorship and political repression as a result of revolutionary fervour, allowing the further spread of nationalist ideas amongst the Italian peoples.
In 1859, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, allied with France fought the Austrian Empire to liberate Lombardy from Austrian control, and as a result, Piedmont-Sardinia annexed Lombardy and the Central Italian states under the Savoy dynasty of Victor Emmanuel II. Shortly afterwards, in 1860, The Kingdom of Sardinia/Italy launched a campaign, commanded by Garibaldi to conquer The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was achieved the following year.
During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Italy allied itself with Prussia, and despite an overall poor performance against the Austrians by Italian forces, Italy was able to gain Venice from Austria thanks to a Prussian victory.
However, Rome, the nominal capital of the Kingdom of Italy, remained outside of Italian hands.

Capture of Rome and the Final Unification of Italy
There was widespread support in Rome itself for unification with the Kingdom of Italy. However, Pope Pius IX refused to surrender his temporal authority over Rome and its outlying areas. He was backed by the French Emperor Napoleon III, who for his own political reasons, maintained a garrison of French troops in Rome in order to deter an Italian military takeover.
Italy did not dare take Rome by force until 1870, when the Franco-Russian war forced Napoleon III to withdraw his garrison. After further attempts at reaching a negotiated settlement allowing Italian troops to enter Rome failed, the Italian army used artillery to breach the ancient Aurelian wall surrounding the city. The breach was then stormed by Italian infantry. After a nominal resistance by Papal forces, the furious Pope was forced to surrender the city to Victor Emmanuel II. Although Rome was now under Italian control, Pius IX and his successors for a long time refused to concede their sovereignty over the city, and considered the papacy to be under an illegal and ‘faithless’ occupation by the Italian government.

Italy as a World Power
In the years following unification, Italy began to industrialise rapidly, at least in the North, as the South generally remained rural, overpopulated and poor. Italy still had territorial claims on Austro-Hungarian lands, and relations between the two countries remained hostile, despite Italy joining the Triple Alliance, which included Austria-Hungary as well as Germany.
Italy also pursued a policy of imperialist expansion in an attempt to put itself on a more equal footing with its European neighbours. Italy annexed Eritrea in the 1880s. A subsequent attempt to annex neighbouring Ethiopia during the 1890s ended in humiliating failure, but Italy later (in 1911) managed to seize Libya from the sclerotic Ottoman Empire. Italy also harboured ambitions to seize the Adriatic coastline and occupy Greece as and when opportunities arose.
Despite its membership of the Triple Alliance, Italy abandoned Austria-Hungary and Germany when the First World War broke out and eventually joined the allies. Italy’s decision to join the winning side saw her gain southern Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and Zadar, but she did not gain as much territory as she had hoped to gain for joining the allies.

Fascism and World War II
Disappointment at what were perceived to be meagre gains, as well as post-war economic difficulties, led to political instability in Italy. Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist who had since become founder and leader of the Fascist Party, marched on Rome in 1922 with an army of his ‘Blackshirt’ followers and bullied the King into making him Prime Minister. Although Italy remained a monarchy after the fascist coup, Mussolini developed a personality cult around himself, becoming Italy’s de-facto head of state as well its head of government.
Mussolini’s fascist revolution provided inspiration for Hitler’s National Socialist takeover in Germany, and the two dictators became close allies. Italy joined the German War effort in 1940, after Germany’s defeat of France. However, Mussolini’s military ineptitude proved to be more of a liability than an asset to Hitler, and Italy’s disastrous performance in Africa and Greece forced Hitler to divert precious resources away from his planned invasion of Russia in order to prevent Italy from collapsing on those fronts.
Italy was defeated by 1943 and Mussolini deposed, although Mussolini was rescued and put in charge of the German puppet state of the Italian Social Republic in Northern Italy. Mussolini was captured and executed by anti-fascist partisans in April 1945 however, shortly before the conclusion of the war.

Post-War Italy
The House of Savoy’s role in failing to prevent Fascist rule and its consequences largely discredited the Italian monarchy in the eyes of the Italian public, and after a referendum in 1946, a republic was declared, and the House of the Savoy was exiled.
The immediate years following the end of the War were chaotic, but settled down during the 1950s-60s as an economic boom raised the standard of living. Towards the end of the 1960s, political instability and violence returned, orchestrated by various neo-fascist and other extreme leftist groups such as the Red Brigade. Amongst the casualties of this political violence was former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who was kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigade in 1978.
The political violence died down significantly in the 1980s, but has not completely been eliminated.
The Italian leadership attempted to make a break with the political instability and corruption of the past in 1992 when a ‘Second Republic’ was declared.
Recently, the European debt crisis recently has seen the democratically elected lothario Silvio Berlusconi replaced by former EU Commissioner Mario Monti, who has been appointed as a lifetime senator and leads a cabinet of unelected officials to oversee a new ‘Unity’ government in an ostensible attempt to resolve Italy’s financial problems.

Coinage of Italy
The first coins struck and used in Italy were Greek issues introduced by colonists in Southern Italy and Sicily (known as Magna Graecia) during the 6th Century BC. Early Roman currency consisted of crudely cast lumps of metal known as ‘aes rude’, first issued in the early 8th Century of BC (although it would be controversial to describe these as ‘coins’, despite fulfilling a similar role). Later coins, known as ‘aes grave’ were cast in bronze featuring crude pictorial designs on either side.
Rome issued a Greek-style coinage during the early 3rd century, but this was replaced by a uniquely Roman-style coinage based around the silver denarius (initially worth 10 asses) in around 269 BC. Bronze asses, brass dupondii and sestertii, silver denarii and gold aureii were the main denominations issued during the late republican and early imperial eras.
Most republican coins did not feature a living person on the obverse, as the rabidly anti-monarchical Romans considered this too kingly. Julius Caesar was the first to do this shortly before his assassination in in 44 BC when he issued coins with his own portrait. This was considered to be one of the factors that ultimately led to his assassination.
From then on, Roman emperors issued coins with their portraits on the obverse. The third century saw a super-inflationary crisis that saw the rapid debasement of silver coinage. By the end of the reign of Gallienus (253 – 268 AD) the antoninianus (a double denarius) had gone from being a fairly substantial silver coin to a largely bronze coin coated with a thin silver wash. A mint rebellion in Rome during Aurelian’s reign (270-275 AD) resulted in thousands of deaths, and disrupted production of coins there for a time, making provincial mints more important.
A currency reform by Diocletian in the late third century barely stemmed the tide of inflation, but replaced the old denominations with new ones whose names are lost to history, but consisted largely of bronze pieces of various sizes, sometimes coated with a silver wash. These bronze issues were supplemented by silver argentii and gold solidi.
The collapse of the Roman West saw the introduction of a Roman-style coinage under the barbarian rulers of Italy. Byzantine coins were also used in areas which were under Byzantine control.
The Italian lira, used until the adoption of the Euro in 2002, had similar origins to the pound sterling, which was based around the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne’s £sd system. The lira (or pound) was equal to 20 soldi**, each of 12 denari**. Most Italian states used a currency based around this or originating from this system. In reflection of its origins, the lira used the £ sign, although this symbol was used after the numbered amount, rather than before as is the case with the pound sterling.
The florin was a coin first struck in gold in the Italian city of Florence during the 13th century, and the name was adopted by other countries as a name for denominations struck at home. The grosso, first struck in Venice in the 12th century was a large silver coin worth 26 denari and this became the etymological origin of the English word ‘groat’.
The ducat, first issued by Sicily and then by Venice (who also called it the zecchino) during the 12th and 13th centuries became a widely adopted as gold trade coin.
After Napoleon’s conquest of northern Italy, Napoleon established a lira currency that was equal to the French franc, divided into 20 soldi or 100 centesimi. This currency was abolished after Napoleon’s defeat in 1814.
The creation of a united Italian kingdom in 1861 established a standard lira based on the Sardinian lira, based on a silver standard of 4.5g. Italy joined the Latin Monetary Union in 1865 (based around a gold standard of 0.1867 ounces troy of gold per 20 lira), and the lira was equal to the French, Belgian and Swiss franc as well as the Greek drachma. Coins, particularly the gold 20 and 40 lire pieces were considered interchangeable with their fellow Latin Monetary Union equivalents elsewhere.
Coins of 1, 2, 5, 10 centesimi were introduced in 1861 struck in bronze, 50 centesimi and 1, 2 and 5 lire in silver and 10 and 20 lire in gold. In 1894 and 1902 respectively, cupro-nickel or nickel 20 and 25 centesimo pieces were also issued.
World War One and its aftermath saw inflation and a significant change in the size, denomination and composition of Italian coins. By 1926, silver 5 and 10 lire coins were struck to the same size and composition as the 1 and 2 lire coins of pre-war Italy. World War II saw copper replaced by aluminium bronze for the lower denominations and nickel issues were subsequently stuck in stainless steel. Coin production was halted in 1943 following Italy’s defeat and was not resumed again until 1946.
A new republican issue of coins reflected the collapse in the lira’s value during the war. The centesimi sub-denomination was rendered irrelevant, and coins of 1, 2, 5, 10 lire were issued in aluminium, reduced in size from 1951. Other denominations were added later.
Silver 500 lire coins were introduced in 1958, but production was cut back sharply and issued to collectors only from 1967 due to rising silver prices. By 1959, 1 and 2 lire coins were no longer being produced for circulation, although these denominations were resurrected in 1982 for inclusion in collector sets until 2001.
By the time Italy changed over to the Euro, coins of 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 lire remained in circulation. Since the changeover to the Euro in 2002, coins of 1, 2 ,5, 10, 20, 50 cents and 1, 2 Euros are struck, featuring a common European reverse and with national symbols on the obverse, in common with all other countries within the Eurozone.
*The date of the foundation of Rome was used for centuries as a calendar in Europe until it was replaced with the Anno Domini system in around the 9th Century AD.
** Correct spellings in Italian, rather than Roman context.

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