In terms of longevity the Papacy is one of the longest-surviving sovereign entities in the world today. Many nations in one form or other are older; Egypt and China for two, but they have both undergone vast changes in structure and function. The papacy has survived as the spiritual head of much of the Western world, and of some of the non-western world, tracing its line of succession back to the first century AD. Whether the bishopric was actually founded by St. Peter, as Catholic tradition has it - and much of the early tradition is well grounded - the Papacy has indisputable first-century roots. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, this first-century institution continues to fascinate.

     The history of the Papacy has been one of "ups and downs", like that of so many other institutions. In this case the main difference is that the "downs" have not been so far down as to be irreversible. The strength of the Papacy as a secular state has varied; much of the time it attempted to be stronger than it was, and usually paid the penalty eventually. Much of the story has been commemorated on coins and medals.

     The Papacy for its first several centuries generally confined its activities to the spiritual realm. One of the earliest Christian documents we have is the letter of Clement, bishop of Rome, to the church in Corinth, written in the 90s of the first century. As long as Rome had an emperor, the bishop of Rome was at most first among equals, as the bishop of the capitol. The Papacy gained enormous prestige during the fourth century, when it stood nearly alone against the Arians. Nonetheless it had less influence that its occupants preferred; at the vital Council of Nicaea, for example, in 326, Pope Sylvester did not attend, and was represented only by minor functionaries, who played little part.

     With the fall of Rome the Papacy began to assume secular importance as well. As barbarian kings and Byzantine generals and exarchs came and went, the Papacy alone came to represent stability. By playing one external faction off against another the bishops of Rome were able to gain some measure of independence. Nominally under Byzantine control, Rome was in fact quasi-independent under its bishop by the early eighth century.

     What upset this balancing-act was the arrival of the Lombards, and the increasing pressure to which they subjected the Italian states. It didn't help that the Byzantine emperor, under pressure of his own from Islamic enemies, was a proponent of iconoclasm throughout most of the century. The iconoclasts held that the use of icons and other religious images violated the commandment against worshipping images, and was thus wrong. Their opponents, including Pope Gregory III (731-741), the first Pope to issue coinage in his own name, held that their use of images was well short of worship, hence was not a problem.

     This difference of opinion was important enough in its time. More important, however, was the Lombard threat. By the 740s they had eliminated the Byzantine power from central Italy, and had effectively cut Rome off from any assistance in that direction. Papal diplomacy went abroad in a desperate search for allies. Their best hope was in far-away France, where the Merovingian dynasty was on its last legs. The house of Pepin of Herstal, mayors of the palace of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, however, in the person of Charles Martel (i. e., the Hammer), was another story. Charles, fresh from victory over the Spanish Muslims, was approached; however, he had little interest in campaigning so far from France.

     Gregory's successors had better luck. They got their first taste of power politics in 751, when they declared the last Merovingian deposed in favour of Charles's son Pepin, who then intervened in Italy and thrashed the Lombards. From this point, with Pepin's generosity in giving the Papacy a number of cities which he had taken from the Lombards, relations between Rome and the Franks became that much closer.

     Around this time appears the infamous forgery known as the "Donation of Constantine". This interesting document, purporting to be a decree in which the emperor Constantine assigns to Pope Sylvester and his successors, in 326, the rule of the western half of the Roman Empire (as if such a hard-nosed warlord would have voluntarily given more than nominal power to anyone!) seems to have been produced to give a little extra weight to the appeal to Pepin. It was later taken up as the cornerstone of the secular claims of the Papacy, and continued to influence policy well after delle Valle exposed it as bogus in the fifteenth century.

     The coinage of the eighth-century Popes reflects its Byzantine origins through the reign of Charlemagne. In 797, however, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VI was overthrown by his mother Irene, who seized the throne for herself. As the Emperor was first and foremost Imperator - commander-in-chief - the idea of a woman and civilian holding that position was unthinkable, especially to the hard-pressed Romans. The result was that the imperial throne was held to be vacant, and pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as the new Emperor on Christmas Day 800.

     The immediate result of this coronation was the formation of a close alliance between the Carolingian Franks and the Papacy. The coinage changed as well, from a sub-Byzantine issue based on the solidus and siliqua to one based on the Frankish silver denier. The problem with both the alliance and the coinage was that they were only as good as the rulers on both sides. After Leo the Popes declined rapidly, and the Carolingians followed suit. By the death of Louis the Pious the Papacy was in trouble again. The main enemy this time was the "Saracens", North African Muslims who, having occupied most of Sicily, were ravaging parts of mainland Italy as well. In 846 they raided as far as the walls of Rome, looting St. Peter's Basilica which was then outside the walls.

John VIII. AR Denier. Lot 487.

     As papal power declined, and as Imperial authority declined even more rapidly, the need of the Papacy to look to its own defenses grew, as did the scope of its secular claims. By the reign of John VIII (872-882) the Pope had to be a general and admiral as well; John not only built a fleet but led it with considerable success against the Muslims. Significantly John, despite his naval prowess, was assassinated, apparently by elements among his Roman enemies.

     In the following reigns the Papacy declined to a prize for which the factions in Rome competed. The history of the Papacy in the tenth century, up to the cessation of the Papal coinage under Benedict VII (974-983) was one of increasing chaos punctuated by some particularly unsavory event, such as the trial and deposition of Pope Formosus in 897, when he had been dead for a year; his corpse was duly convicted and thrown in the Tiber; or the death of the "dissolute boy" John XII (955-964), in his twenties when he died of "amorous excesses" according to more than one chronicler. By this time the Popes were merely puppets of one Roman faction or other. The Papacy, mired in the corrupt politics of the time, was paying the price.

     Not surprisingly the corruption produced a reaction. The great reform movements of the tenth and eleventh centuries, beginning with the founding of the monastery at Cluny in 910 and the reign of Gregory VII (1073-1085). This was the Pope whose conflict with the emperor Henry IV over investiture of clerics - namely, the right to appoint bishops and abbots as though they were secular barons - brought the Papacy to its peak of power. Unfortunately for him Gregory overreached himself, and he died in exile. Also unfortunate is the fact that the Papal coinage ceases; the only issues before 1294 are Roman senatorial issues and a single "Sede Vacante" (i. e., vacant throne) issue.

     The first Pope after the tenth century to issue coins was Boniface VIII (1294-1303) whose conflict with king Philip IV of France led him to issue the bull Unam Sanctam, which was the ultimate extreme statement of Papal claims to secular power. Boniface is also known for proclaiming the first Holy Year in 1300; many of the subsequent Holy Years are commemorated on medals.

     Soon afterwards Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, established his court at Avignon, in southern France. This was partly due to his own inclinations, partly to pressure from the French crown, and partly due to the continued turbulence of the various family factions at Rome. His successor, John XXII, was elected as a compromise candidate, as he was not expected to last very long. He surprised everybody by his tenure. He issued coinage on the French system, with a gros tournois and denier, as well as various coinages in his Italian territories.

     The Papal States were finally brought under Papal control under Urban V, who tried to return to Rome in 1367. He didn't quite make it. In this he had been assisted by the great English victories at Crecy (1347) and Poitiers (1356), which weakened the French crown sufficiently to allow him some freedom of action. Gregory XI finally made it in 1377. His death in 1378 was followed by the election of the uncompromising Urban VI; his attitude alarmed the French clergy to the point where they declared him deposed and elected Robert of Geneva, Gregory's general, as Clement VII. Clement was supported by France and its allies; Urban by everyone else. Thus the Great Schism began, with a Roman and an Avignonese pope arrayed against each other and, later, a third; all three were declared deposed by the Council of Constance, which elected Martin V (1417-1431).

Martin V. AR Carlin Lot 492.

     Around this time the art of medal production, long abandoned in Europe since Roman times, began to experience a revival. Notwithstanding the existence nowadays of medals of earlier Popes - the Lincoln catalogue, after all, advertised them going back to St. Peter - medals of, say, Paul I (757-767) were all quite obviously issued much later than that time. As Italy was the home of pioneer medallists like Pisanello, not surprisingly the Papacy, as an Italian power, began under Martin V to commemorate various aspects of itself by this means. The Renaissance, after all, was about the rediscovery of Graeco-Roman antiquity; that included coins, especially the large bronze sestertii, and the high-relief, large bronzes made a striking contrast to the flat silver pieces of the day.

     These early medals were cast, not struck; medieval mint technique did not allow the sort of die work needed to produce high-relief work which medal production requires. Only during the course of the sixteenth century did the engravers finally produce techniques to rival, then surpass, those of the Roman sestertius minters.

     By the late fifteenth century the papacy had again spent its resources toward obtaining secular power. The pontificates of Eugenius IV (1431-1447) through Pius II (1458-1464) shut down any official attempts at reform, and their successors - Paul II (1464-1471), Sixtus IV (1471-1484), under whom the Sistine Chapel was begun, and Innocent VIII (1484-1494) the Papacy was intent on becoming a proper Renaissance principality. Under the notorious Rodrigo Borgia (Alexander VI; 1492-1503), whose family became legendary for every sort of evil - witness the notoriety of his daughter Lucrezia Borgia, one of seven acknowledged children - the Papacy hit its all-time moral low. Among other things, Catholic Europe was treated to the spectacle of a Pope attempting to form an alliance with the Turks against France.

Grosso of Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). Lot 494.

     The next two decades, in which the papal tiara was worn by a warlord (Julius II; 1503-1513), an aesthete (Leo X; 1513-1523), and an incompetent schemer (Clement VII, 1523-1534) and the by then nearly universal desire for reform broke out in Germany, under Luther. The Catholic powers weren't much more kindly disposed; the Emperor Charles V, provoked by Clement's scheming, marched an army into Rome in 1527, and the poorly-paid, mutinous soldiers subjected the city to its worst sacking since 410.

     Whatever the merits of these Popes as churchmen, their importance as patrons of the arts is enormous, since Michaelangelo was only the best known of their resident artists. The coins and medals of the period were produced by the finest artists of the period.

     To retrieve the disaster caused by the wholesale defection of much of Europe became the primary task of the following Popes, beginning with Paul III (1534-1539). The mammoth problems convinced them that the Augean stable of the Church needed a good cleaning, and the result was the Council of Trent. Originally called in 1545 in an attempt to settle affairs with the Lutherans it met at intervals until 1563, by which time it had laid the foundation for the Catholic counteroffensive.

     During this period the series of medals became much more regular, with two main series: first, the annual series, one per year commemorating some event or expressing a sentiment; and second, the extraordinary series, struck to commemorate a specific remarkable event. The most notorious of these was that of 1572, issued by Gregory XII (1572-1585), on the occasion of the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre". Another issue commemorated the crushing victory won by the combined fleets of Spain, Venice and the Papacy over the Turks at Lepanto in 1571. A third was the very curious figure of a half-nude Securitas, comemorating Sixtus V's successful campaign in the 1580s to destroy the bandits infesting the Papal states.

Sixtus V Peretti. Æ 34 Medal, reverse. Lot 511.

     The history of the Papacy after Lepanto is inextricably mixed with that of the rest of Europe, as it had become in fact what its resources allowed: namely a fifth-rate secular power with considerably more spiritual influence than temporal strength. During the next two centuries its incumbents kept to a generally high standard of personal conduct, but their secular affairs were often self-defeating. During the seventeenth century many of the Popes embarked on a lavish program of building in Rome; they produced not only palaces and other public buildings, but training colleges and fortifications as well; many of these projects are commemorated on medals.

Alexander VII Chigi. Æ 38 Medal, showing the Roman Archgymnasium. Lot 521.

     Attempts to extend secular influence generally failed miserably; under Urban VIII Barberini (1623-1644) his attempts to strengthen the military power of Rome brought enemies to the walls of the city; to repair them he mined many ancient monuments for building materials, prompting the comment "quid non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini", viz. "what wasn't destroyed by the barbarians was by Barberini".

Urban VII, Gregory XIV, Innocent IX. Æ Medans, Lots 513, 514. 515.

     One interesting sidelight from the period is the medallic history of the years 1590-1, when five Popes appeared and disappeared; one, Urban VII, famed for his "benigna natura", lasted a mere twelve days. The coins of these ephemeral Popes are rare; the medals are much less rare, and they provide us with fine portraits of these very obscure figures.

     The coins generally follow the systems prevalent in the areas in which they were struck. In Italy they include the fine Testones, from Testa, head, indicating the large "shilling" issues with the profile bust of the ruling Pope. In France they follow the French tournois system, down to the later copper doubles tournois with the head of the Pope on the obverse and the three bees of the Papal governor, Cardinal Antonio Barberini.

     During the eighteenth century the Papacy rose to the height of the pontificate of Benedict XIV (1740-1758), admired even by his enemies, and then down to the degradation of the French occupation of Rome and murder in all but name of Pius VI in 1799. His successor, Pius VII (1800-23) did his best in a difficult situation, crowning Napoleon as Emperor in Notre-Dame-de-Paris in 1804, commemorated on medals.

     The nineteenth century saw the elimination of the Papacy as a secular power, with the unification of Italy under the king of Sardinia. Since 1870 the Papacy has been confined almost entirely to the religious sphere, and from the Concordat of 1929 it has been issuing coins on the Italian monetary system, and the series of medals commemorating such things as the First Vatican Council and the various Holy Years continues to the present time.

     The series of coins is relatively straightforward. The coins fall into several main groups: the sub-Byzantine series before 800; the Frankish-style Papal-Imperial deniers of the ninth and tenth centuries; the Roman coins of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries; the medieval series of Italy and Avignon; the Renaissance and early modern coinage series, the eighteenth and nineteenth century coinage; and, finally, the modern Italian coinage.

     The medals are a bit more complex due to the existence of restrikes. While most of the medals from the early fifteenth century were originally produced at the stated time, a given example is likely to be later. The earliest medals were cast of bronze; lead examples of the period are known as well. Original medals were used to make moulds, and after-casts produced from them, and a given after-cast may be several generations removed from the original. The best way to tell the original from the after-cast is to compare weight - the after-casts are almost always much smaller and lighter than the originals - and detail - fine detail is typically very blurred on the later copies.

     Struck medals can be more difficult to tell, as most of them were issued using original dies. In most cases the die-engravers worked under contract; they made the dies and struck a certain number of examples, then kept the dies, often striking later examples on demand. By the late eighteenth century the Papacy realized that these medals were worth preserving; hence Papal agents began to purchase such old dies as they could find from the heirs of the gravers. The first major purchase was from the heirs of the Hamerani, noted gravers of the later seventeenth century, in the 1790s, and thereafter purchases continued.

     Telling early from late examples can be difficult. Generally, however, early examples are thin, as they were struck before they generally realized the advantages of using thick flans. The dies are generally in new condition; by the 1790s they were often somewhat rusty, and they were often close to being completely worn out, with cracks, pits and other defects. Finally, the finish on old examples is typical of old bronze; they are often worn as well, since they were originally produced as souvenirs, not as collector's items. The restrikes were made for collectors, with either a new-ish, coppery finish or an "antiqued" black patina, and they rarely are significantly worn. Late restrikes are above all struck on thick flans with obvious file-marks on the edges. Obviously late medals include all fantasy issues, particularly those of Popes whose pontificates date before 1417, and struck medals which purport to be much before 1530. Other indications are "muling", namely the issue of medals with an obverse of one Pope and a reverse of another. Silver medals are likely to be original; also, usefully for comparison, medals of minor figures such as various cardinals are likely to be originals or early restrikes, as the demand for those medals was not great for very long.

     Although it might seem that later restrikes are in the category of "copies", nonetheless they are as valid as examples of the art of their period as, say, the numerous impressions of prints by Rembrandt issued from his plates as late as the nineteenth century. Indeed, the medals are better, as they (unlike the prints) were issued from original, nearly always unaltered, dies, whereas the printing-plates were usually extensively reworked. As examples of affordable Renaissance and Baroque Italian art they are unmatched at the price, and as historical commemoratives they are of interest, as they have been for centuries; that, after all, is why they were so extensively restruck.

     The Papal series is one of the longest-running and most interesting Western coinage issues, having been produced under a series of rulers off and on from its beginnings in the eighth century. Most of the coins are attributable to a specific pontificate. In addition the splendid series of medals, designed by the finest artists of the times, continues to fascinate, as it has done for nearly six centuries. As the coins and medals are not only artistic, but also products of an important European state, they are collectible regardless of one's religious inclinations. With the publication, in convenient format, of Berman's catalogue, the coinage series becomes readily accessible