The Hermitage guide

There are scores of coins dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, found in the territory of the Soviet Union. The period from the late twelfth to the fifteenth century is not as well represented, for silver coins of the time except Prague groschen and Polish and Baltic coins have not practically occurred in the finds made in Eastern Europe. The number of German bracteates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, together with coins from the only hoard of bracteates encountered at Khotin, does not exceed 5,000. The Hermitage now has an extensive collection of early gold florins and ducats, particularly from Italy, Hungary and the Rhenish regions of Germany, which were uncovered in the hoards in the south and southwest of the USSR. The gold coinages of the Netherlands, England and France are extremely well represented. There is an exceptionally varied collection of large silver coins of the late fifteenth to eighteenth centuries — talers and testones (from the Italian testa, head, usually bearing a head of the ruler) — and an excellent collection of the first talers struck by the Schlicks, Counts of Czechia. There is also a group of Neapolitan talers of Charles V and Philip II with the countermark of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland, who inherited these coins from his mother, the Milanese Duchess Bona Sforza. The Neapolitan coins with the counter-mark of 1564 are the immediate predecessors of the Polish taler. Among the silver coins of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries there are many rare trial specimens and kindred piedforts — multiple or pattern pieces struck on an unusually thick flan. Intended for checking the quality and weight of conventional coins, these were often presented as gifts to the high-ranking persons inspecting the mints.

The collection of Russian coins, totalling with duplicates some 250,000, is especially complete, and is the best of its kind in the world. The foundations of Russian coinage were laid by Grand Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich in the late tenth century, and coincided with the beginning of coinage in several European countries, notably Poland, Sweden and Norway (the first coins of these countries are also fairly well represented in the Hermitage). The earliest Russian gold and silver coins are called zlatniki and srebrianiki. Zlalniki are particularly rare; there are only ten known pieces of which seven are in the Hermitage. The srebrianiki of Prince Yaroslav the Wise are distinguished by their superb workmanship. No less remarkable is the zolotoi of Ivan III (1462—1505); although modelled on the Hungarian ducat widely used in commerce at that time, it nevertheless bears Russian legends. By issuing the Russian ducat Ivan III wished to show that Russia had become stronger both politically and economically and acquired increasing international prestige. At the end of 1974 the Museum received, a Russian imitation of an English noble, with the name of Ivan III.

From the fourteenth century until the reforms of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter the Great the main monetary unit in Russia was the denga, coined of tiny bits of silver wire. Some types of the denga, especially those of the appanage period, are quite rare. The coin of the lowest denomination — the copper pulo — was struck in individual areas of the country and much less frequently than the denga. The reforms of the mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries narrowed the gap between the Russian monetary system and that of Western Europe; the mintage of large silver roubles and gold coins was begun. Among the monetary units of the seventeenth century, the talers mentioned above, with the Russian countermark of 1655, are particularly interesting in that they reflect Russia’s economic relations with other European countries. The Hermitage possesses about one third (456 pieces) of the total number of such coins housed in various museums in the world.