W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

420 The Coins of Europe
The coins of the Lombards somewhat differed in
character from those of the Ostrogoths
as well as from
those belonging to the Merovingian and imperial systems.
They are found almost exclusively in gold and silver ;
and
the mints were Pavia, Lucca, Milan, Piacenza, and possibly
Treviso. A gold piece of Desiderius reads Flavia Sidrio,
and has been referred to Sutri. The silver currency (silica
and half silica) is of small module and of bracteate fabric ;
it occurs of more than one reign ;
the earliest which we
have seen belongs to that of Pertharit (672-80). The
Christian legend of St. Michael the Archangel, or an angel
holding a casque, presents itself on some of the earlier
issues in gold. St. Michael enjoyed wide favour among the
mediaeval European artists or moneyers ;
and the other
symbol appropriately illustrated the idea of Heaven smiling
on the efforts of the soldier. The Lombard money circulated
side by side with that of the Franks, by which it was
eventually superseded. Rotharis (636-52) discerned the
advantage of checking utterers of forgeries by imposing
severe penalties on convicted offenders, a piece of legislation
renewed by the Emperor Louis II. (849-75).
The gold coins of the Lombard kings are, for the most
part, of extreme rarity. One of Astulphus (749-56) fetched
1900 francs, and a second of Carloman (781) iioo francs,
at the Hotel Drouot in 1885. Nor are those in the inferior
metal by any means easily procurable, although in the find
near Turin many years ago a hoard of the reign
of Desiderius
(756-74) occurred in conjunction with Carlovingian pieces.
The rise of the Prankish influence under the successors
of Pepin of Herstal constitutes another important
era in the
Italian annals. The new dynasty, in the persons
of Pepin le Bref and his son Charles the Great,
while it established itself on Italian soil in a certain sense,
prepared the way by the magnitude of the empire, which
gradually submitted to its at least titular authority, for the
consolidation of the papacy and the development of the
republics. The political necessities of the Carlovingian
princes, owing to the absence of a centralised and properly