Medieval gold Florin from Florence
I recently was able to trade a few other coins for this gold florin I found at a local ancient artifacts shop. With hours of research, here is what I’ve been able to confirm to the best of my ability: Mintmaster - Niccolo Serristori, confirmed via the family’s crest next to St. John the Baptist on the reverse. Fun fact: this was the Serristori family crest prior to the 1515 family crest change authorized by Pope Leo X (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici) to add three papal lilies. Date struck: first semester of 1462.
The Serristori family were very important and very wealthy in renaissance Florence, working as merchant bankers, wool and silk traders, and creating global commercial networks all while supporting and growing beside the most powerful family of all, the Medici’s (hence why a future Medici, Pope Leo X, allowed the papal lilies to be added to the Serristori family crest). Their rise to power and fortune was incredibly quick for the time; the original patriarch moved to Florence from a nearby town in 1384, and in 78 years his great grandson Niccolo Serristori was already appointed as Florence’s mintmaster. The mintmaster (Signori della Zecca) in Florence was viewed as an incredibly important position of office; the entire reputation of the gold florin, the international standard form of commerce, was placed on the mintmaster’s shoulders. The Serristori family still to this day has multiple roads and a palace named after them in Florence! They even eventually married into the Machiavelli family and inherited the famous Niccolò Machiavelli’s estate!
The gold Florin was the international standard of commerce (kind of like the US dollar today) from 1252 until about 1500, which means that it’s very likely that nearly every major international monetary deal (loans to kings, international sales and purchases, etc) made during that time was with these coins!