FREIE UND HANSESTADT HAMBURG. THE PRIDE OF A CITY EXPRESSED BY A SPLENDID MEDAL
As often happens in numismatics, a very unique medal solicits curiosity, offers us the opportunity to deepen our knowledge of history, and ultimately provides us with further interpretive keys for today’s reality.
The medal in question is a spectacular specimen in gold, a 10 ducats Portugalöser weighing about 35 grams and with a diameter of 50 mm, presented at the recent Bolaffifi auction of 7 and 8 June 2017. The incentives for investigating such an object are virtually infinite, but we must limit ourselves to briefly addressing only a few.
The first is the issuing authority: the government of the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which even today within the Federal Republic of Germany has autonomous status.
In the 13th century, Hamburg became part of the Hanseatic League, an alliance created following the model of the Greek poleis among the cities along the Baltic and the North Sea, with the aim of providing mutual assistance in commercial relations. These cities were not included in a feudal estate and responded to the Emperor directly, without the intermediation of a local feudal lord; they were therefore free cities, free to seek their own development through their own established rules. The three main cities, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, maintained this status far beyond the fall of the Hanseatic League, which, although never formally dissolved, actually ceased to exist in the second half of the seventeenth century when the consequences of trans-oceanic discoveries and the emergence of territorial states and then later national states manifested themselves in terms of structural changes in trade. The second incentive that the medal offers us is its meaning: it was meant to celebrate the positive consequences of the Treaty of Stettin, concluded in 1653 between Sweden and Brandenburg for the precise definition of the division of Pomerania, established in principle in the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, which five years before had ended the Thirty Years War. The importance of this event for Hamburg is understood by observing the map and noting that the distance to Lübeck is an easily transitable 70 km, a convenient journey for goods coming and going from the east, incomparably less risky and shorter than the one alternative available at the time: the circumnavigation of the Danish peninsula. Peace in northeast Europe was the indispensable condition for the smooth flow of East-West trade, a source of prosperity in Hamburg. The third curiosity is the reason why the medal was minted and its possible use. It should be noted that in 1619 the City Council of the free city founded the Hamburger Bank, a super-partes expression of the merchant communities present in the city, among which the large, rich community of Sephardic Jews which had settled in the Hanseatic cities, particularly in Hamburg, after being driven out of the Iberian peninsula. Among the duties assigned to the bank were the organization and management of the mint with the issue of circulating currency and coins or medals for a specific use, among which the 10 ducats Portugalöser (and the 5 ducats half Portugalöser). The function of these medals was for annually paying homage to those holding honorary titles in the Municipality, the Bank, and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as occasionally, to foreign delegations on official visit to the city and generally to give particular emphasis and solemnity to the conclusion of an economic transaction that the Municipality considered strategic for the city. It was essentially a tribute that was not directly usable as currency, but which was easily convertible.
Examining the medal closely, on the front we find a spectacular skyline of the city as it was at the time, today unfortunately lost after a large fire hit the oldest quarters in 1842, but above all destroyed by the English bombardment of 1943, second in terms of destruction only to Dresden. In the stretch of water overlooking the city walls, we see boats of all sizes: large ships and small boats with their occupants, depicted so finely that we can almost perceive their faces. But the real surprise is at the top, where a majestic pavilion protecting the city’s coat of arms, supported by two hands coming out of the clouds, holds Hebrew characters which spell out the name of the Creator, a testimony of the role and the importance that the Sephardic community had acquired in Hamburg.
Evidently, despite Hamburg’s adherence to the reform, the climate of coexistence between Christians and Jews was not influenced in the least by the anti-Semitic positions that Luther had assumed a century before, and which would have been dishonorably used by Nazism three centuries later.
On the back of the medal we find a fairly similar scene in which the city appears in the background while in the foreground we can see the Elbe estuary, the waterway which gave Hamburg its wealth, populated by ships. Though a bit more sparse than the crowd of boats represented before the harbor on the obverse, the image is equally rich in astonishing details. In this case as well, the element of greatest interest is on the top and consists of a feminine figure who personifies Peace, intent on emptying the abundant contents of two cornucopias on the waterway: the allegorical allusion to the benefits of peace is instantly visible. A truly unique medal, one that demonstrates both in its general appearance and in its detail, an engraving masterpiece by Sebastian Dadler (1586-1657), produced during the period of baroque’s greatest growth in Germany.
It's not surprising that this object so full of references and historical meanings changed hands for the remarkable price of 39,000 euros, after rising from an already very-suitable starting price of 15,000 euros.
by CARLO BARZAN
The medal in question is a spectacular specimen in gold, a 10 ducats Portugalöser weighing about 35 grams and with a diameter of 50 mm, presented at the recent Bolaffifi auction of 7 and 8 June 2017. The incentives for investigating such an object are virtually infinite, but we must limit ourselves to briefly addressing only a few.
The first is the issuing authority: the government of the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which even today within the Federal Republic of Germany has autonomous status.
In the 13th century, Hamburg became part of the Hanseatic League, an alliance created following the model of the Greek poleis among the cities along the Baltic and the North Sea, with the aim of providing mutual assistance in commercial relations. These cities were not included in a feudal estate and responded to the Emperor directly, without the intermediation of a local feudal lord; they were therefore free cities, free to seek their own development through their own established rules. The three main cities, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, maintained this status far beyond the fall of the Hanseatic League, which, although never formally dissolved, actually ceased to exist in the second half of the seventeenth century when the consequences of trans-oceanic discoveries and the emergence of territorial states and then later national states manifested themselves in terms of structural changes in trade. The second incentive that the medal offers us is its meaning: it was meant to celebrate the positive consequences of the Treaty of Stettin, concluded in 1653 between Sweden and Brandenburg for the precise definition of the division of Pomerania, established in principle in the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, which five years before had ended the Thirty Years War. The importance of this event for Hamburg is understood by observing the map and noting that the distance to Lübeck is an easily transitable 70 km, a convenient journey for goods coming and going from the east, incomparably less risky and shorter than the one alternative available at the time: the circumnavigation of the Danish peninsula. Peace in northeast Europe was the indispensable condition for the smooth flow of East-West trade, a source of prosperity in Hamburg. The third curiosity is the reason why the medal was minted and its possible use. It should be noted that in 1619 the City Council of the free city founded the Hamburger Bank, a super-partes expression of the merchant communities present in the city, among which the large, rich community of Sephardic Jews which had settled in the Hanseatic cities, particularly in Hamburg, after being driven out of the Iberian peninsula. Among the duties assigned to the bank were the organization and management of the mint with the issue of circulating currency and coins or medals for a specific use, among which the 10 ducats Portugalöser (and the 5 ducats half Portugalöser). The function of these medals was for annually paying homage to those holding honorary titles in the Municipality, the Bank, and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as occasionally, to foreign delegations on official visit to the city and generally to give particular emphasis and solemnity to the conclusion of an economic transaction that the Municipality considered strategic for the city. It was essentially a tribute that was not directly usable as currency, but which was easily convertible.
Examining the medal closely, on the front we find a spectacular skyline of the city as it was at the time, today unfortunately lost after a large fire hit the oldest quarters in 1842, but above all destroyed by the English bombardment of 1943, second in terms of destruction only to Dresden. In the stretch of water overlooking the city walls, we see boats of all sizes: large ships and small boats with their occupants, depicted so finely that we can almost perceive their faces. But the real surprise is at the top, where a majestic pavilion protecting the city’s coat of arms, supported by two hands coming out of the clouds, holds Hebrew characters which spell out the name of the Creator, a testimony of the role and the importance that the Sephardic community had acquired in Hamburg.
Evidently, despite Hamburg’s adherence to the reform, the climate of coexistence between Christians and Jews was not influenced in the least by the anti-Semitic positions that Luther had assumed a century before, and which would have been dishonorably used by Nazism three centuries later.
On the back of the medal we find a fairly similar scene in which the city appears in the background while in the foreground we can see the Elbe estuary, the waterway which gave Hamburg its wealth, populated by ships. Though a bit more sparse than the crowd of boats represented before the harbor on the obverse, the image is equally rich in astonishing details. In this case as well, the element of greatest interest is on the top and consists of a feminine figure who personifies Peace, intent on emptying the abundant contents of two cornucopias on the waterway: the allegorical allusion to the benefits of peace is instantly visible. A truly unique medal, one that demonstrates both in its general appearance and in its detail, an engraving masterpiece by Sebastian Dadler (1586-1657), produced during the period of baroque’s greatest growth in Germany.
It's not surprising that this object so full of references and historical meanings changed hands for the remarkable price of 39,000 euros, after rising from an already very-suitable starting price of 15,000 euros.
by CARLO BARZAN