page_title: Gigliato
section_title: Gigliati in Naples
hierarchical_section_title: Gigliato / Gigliati in Naples
context_page_description: The Gigliato, also Gillat or Carlino, was a coin of pure silver established in 1303 by Charles II of Anjou in Naples, and then also in Provence from 1330. Its name derives from the Lilies depicted on the reverse entwined around a cross.
  The coin weighed 4 grams. This type of coin was widely copied in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially by the Turks, such as the Emir of Saruhan.
context_section_description: Charles II of Anjou's silver gigliato was the same diameter as the dominant silver coin of its time, the French gros tournois, or as the grosso rinforzato being struck by the Roman Senate, i.e. 24 m.m.. It contained 4.01 grams of .929 fine silver, or 3.73 grams of pure silver.  Its types were more typical of French gold coins, especially Philip the Fair's petit royal d’or, than Italian silver coins.
  The obverse shows the king in majestatum, i.e. seated on his throne.  In this case the throne had lions on either side and the king holds a scepter and an orb topped with a cross.  The legend, KAROL SCD DEI GRA IERL ET SICIL REX, i.e. Charles the second king of Jerusalem and Sicily, requires a bit of explaining.  Charles I expanded his empire in to the Balkans and purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1277, even though Christians had not ruled that city since the Sultan Saladin drove them out in 1187.  By 1303, the last remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Acre, was lost too, but the title was still prestigious.  Moreover, the island of Sicily, which Charles I of Anjou had conquered in 1266, had been lost in a 1282 revolt called the Sicilian Vespers.  Charles II of Anjou himself was captured in the ensuing war and had renounced his claims to Sicily as a condition of his release in 1288.  His ally the pope immediately released him from this promise, and the 1302 Peace of Caltabellotta justified his use of the title King of Sicily for what is now more accurately called Naples, so the coin legend was appropriate.
  The reverse shows a cross with fleur-de-lis on the ends of its arms and more fleur-de-lis in its angles.  This profusion of lilies gave the coin its nickname, gigliato, after the Provençal name for them, gillat.  The legend, HONOR REGIS IVDICIVM DILIGIT, i.e. the honor of the king loves judgment, is from Psalm 99.4 and was appropriate to the pious Charles II.  The same legend was used again much later on coins of James VI of Scotland.
  Charles II of Anjou's third son and successor, Robert the Wise became a leader of the Guelph, i.e. pro-papal, party in Italy.  He paid for his campaigns against the  Ghibelline, i.e. pro-imperial, party by minting vast numbers of gigliati.  In the reign of  Ladislaus the Magnanimous (1386-1414), however, a shortage of silver throughout Western Europe forced him to downscale his coinage to half and quarter gigliati with the same designs.
  The gigliati was such a success that it outlasted the Angevin dynasty.  After the revolt of 1285 separated them for Naples, Sicily had adopted its own coin denominations and used them for anti-Angevin propaganda.  When Alfonso V of Aragon reunited Naples and Sicily in 1442, he adopted the gigliato of his now conquered arch-enemy.  If this amounted to admitting that the Neapolitans had created a superior coinage, a change in the reverse design left no doubt which side had prevailed.  All the fleur-de-lis which gave the coin its nickname, and which were the symbol of France, gave way to a coat-of-arms which, in the well understood heraldic symbolism of the day, showed that Aragon had taken over Angevin Naples and its claim to Jerusalem.
caption: Silver gigliato of Robert the Wise
exif: {}