THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

CONTINENT OF EUROPE
The reader must be invited to refer for fuller par-
ticulars of all the Italian coinages, and of the rarities
in the several series, to our larger book, and the
authorities there cited, collaterally with the new facts
enumerated below, and in our papers in the Antiquary
on the Coins of Venice, 1884. The special desiderata in
the Sicilian series are indicated by us in another place.
The autonomous coinage of the Knights of St. John
of Jerusalem at Rhodes, Candia, and Malta has found
a capable historian in M. Furse, whose large mono-
graph deserves to be better known to collectors. It
is a series abounding in fine examples of workmanship
and portraiture, but which offers many almost insuper-
able difficulties to the aspirant to completeness, as
some of the earlier pieces are of the first order of
rarity, and nearly all the silver and copper occur, as a
rule, either poorly struck or in a condition which the
French describe as laid. The early gold sequins (of
Venetian type) are common enough, with a few notable
exceptions ; but they are so carelessly executed as to
be uninviting. The later heavy gold is of frequent
occurrence, but is woith only its weight in metal. The
most covetable acquisitions are the large silver scudi
and the earlier copper in fine state.
France presents to our view a sufficiently extensive
and intricate monetary system, though far less so than
Germany or the Low Countries, inasmuch as the rights
of coinage enjoyed by a very large body of feudatories
throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the firm
establishment of the House of Bourbon on the throne,
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