| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 421 Price realized: 360 CHF (Approx. 377 USD / 365 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Martin V (Oddone Colonna), 1417-1431. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 38.5 mm, 50.96 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border. Rev. •MAR/TINVS•/ •PP• V• in three lines, the whole within a circular, dotted border. Serafini 92-94. Well centered. Very fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA ex Classical Numismatic Group e218, 9 September 2009, 498. Martin V was born into one of the great Roman noble families, the Colonna, in 1369. Perhaps his greatest importance was his role in ending the Western Schism through his election as Pope at the Council of Constance in 1417. It was at this council that the Roman pope, Gregory XII, and the Pisan antipope, John XXIII (the notorious Baldassare Cossa), were forced to resign and the antipope in Avignon, Benedict XIII, was excommunicated. Martin V's reign was overshadowed by the Hussite Wars in Bohemia, which began in 1419 and lasted until 1434. They resulted in a settlement allowing religious freedom, in this case a pre-Lutherian type of Protestantism, which only ended with the suppression of 1620. Estimate: 450 CHF |  |
Match 1:
| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 424 Price realized: 200 CHF (Approx. 209 USD / 203 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli), 1447-1455. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 39.5 mm, 40.07 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border . Rev. + / •NICO/LAVS/ •PP• V• in four lines, the whole within a circular dotted border. Serafini 49-50. Brown surfaces; clear strike. Good very fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA. Nicholas V was an intellectual and a scholar who both loved books (some, with his own annotations, still remain in the Vatican library) and was also greatly concerned with the rebuilding and embellishment of the city of Rome. He was a patron of the arts and can be said to have truly brought the Renaissance to Rome. His greatest disappointment must have been his inability to save Constantinople from falling to the Ottomans in 1453. He had attempted to unite western Christendom in a crusade to save Constantinople fell flat, and the small fleet (including Papal galleys and some from Venice, Genoa and Naples) he was able to send only arrived after the city's fall. He did, however, managed to get quite a number of manuscripts saved from city's libraries. Estimate: 250 CHF |  |
Match 2:
| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 423 Price realized: 900 CHF (Approx. 943 USD / 912 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Eugene IV (Gabriele Condulmer), 1431-1447. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 37.5 mm, 43.75 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border . Rev. + / •EVGEN/IVS •PP /• IIII• in four lines, the whole within a circular, dotted border. Serafini 55-59. Pleasant dark surfaces, with sharply pressed types. A few minor marks, otherwise, nearly extremely fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA. Pope Eugene, who stemmed from an important Venetian family, spent his whole reign maintaining Papal authority over that claimed by church councils, specifically the Council of Basel (1431-1439). He began his rule by moving against the aristocratic Roman Colonna family of his predecessor Martin V, who he believed had usurped all too much power; this led to Eugene's flight from Rome to Bologna in June 1434, but by 1436, thanks to the victories of the Papal armies led by the warrior cardinal Giovanni Vitellischi and by Francesco I Sforza, the Colonna were put down. As for the struggle with the Conciliars, this continued and Eugene convened his own council in Ferrara 1438 (it soon moved to Florence), which excommunicated the Basel council. In turn, in 1439, they excommunicated Eugene and deposed him as a heretic; even going so far as to elect Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy as their own pope (now known as the antipope Felix V, 1439-1449). In the end, with the help of a number of European princes Eugene emerged triumphant over the Conciliars and returned to Rome in 1443. Eugene also tried to aid the Christians of the East against the Turks - he met with the Byzantine emperor John VIII in Ferrara and Florence, and in 1439 the "union" of the Greek and Roman churches was proclaimed; in addition, on 1 January 1443 Eugene published a Bull establishing a crusade. This crusade, led primarily by Ladislaus III, John Hunyadi and the Papal Legate Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, culminated, in November 1444, in the disastrous Battle of Varna where the Ottomans almost completely wiped them out. Estimate: 300 CHF |  |
Match 3:
| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 417 Price realized: 190 CHF (Approx. 199 USD / 193 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Urban VI (Bartolomeo Prignano), 1378-1389. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 36.5 mm, 54.09 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border . Rev. •URB/ANVS•/ •PP• VI (with eagle head stops) in three lines; below, two eagles with wings spread, facing to left; the whole within a circular, dotted border. Serafini 10-3. Very well centered; fine reddish surfaces. Relatively scarce. Very fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA. In 1378 Urban VI succeeded Gregory XI, the last of the official Avignon Popes, thus apparently ensuring that the Papacy would return to Rome. Unfortunately this enraged the French cardinals, among others, who ended up electing another Pope, Clement VII, thus beginning what became known as the Western Schism, which lasted until 1417. Urban VI's reign was almost entirely spent at war. Interestingly enough, when reconstruction work was being carried out in St. Peter's in 1606 UrbanVI's tomb was discovered. Initially not being recognised the workmen were going to dumb the bones and reuse the sarcophagus for a watering trough for horses (!) when the Vatican Archivist, Giacomo Grimaldi (1568-1623) realized what they were and saved them! Estimate: 225 CHF |  |
Match 4:
| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 410 Price realized: 1,100 CHF (Approx. 1,152 USD / 1,115 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Martin IV (Simon de Brion), 1281-1285. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 37 mm, 47.30 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border . Rev. MAR/TINVS/ •PP• IIII• in three lines, the whole within a circular, dotted border. Serafini 2. Clear and nicely toned. Some roughness and marks, otherwise, very fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA. Pope Martin IV was a Frenchman, Simon de Brion, who was made a cardinal priest by Urban IV in 1261. For most of the following years Simon remained in France as a papal legate, while the great struggle between the French (pro-Angevin) and Italian (pro. Orsini et al.) factions raged in the Church. When Simon de Brion was elected Pope Martin IV in Viterbo on 22 February 1281 anti-French feelings were so strong in Rome that he had to be crowned in Orvieto on 23 March. From then on he never set foot in Rome. He was an unabashed French partisan during all of his reign: in his attempt to aid Charles of Anjou he excommunicated Michael VIII (thus destroying any chance of reconciliation between the Roman and Orthodox Churches; after the Sicilian Vespers of 1282 he excommunicated Peter III of Aragon, but all of Sicily ignored him. Estimate: 400 CHF |  |
Match 5:
| Nomos AG > Auction 25 | Auction date: 20 November 2022 |
| Lot number: 406 Price realized: Unsold | |
| Lot description: ITALY. Papal States. Gregory IX ( Ugolino di Conti), 1227-1241. Seal or Bulla (Lead, 40 mm, 57.85 g, 12 h), Rome. S PA S PE Nimbate facing heads of St. Paul, bald and with a long, linear beard, on the left and St. Peter, with curly hair and beard composed of pellets, on the right; between them, Latin cross on a long staff and base; all within a circular, dotted border . Rev. GRE/GORIVS•/ PP• VIIII• in three lines, all within a circular, dotted border. Serafini 1-5. Struck on a broad flan, and with the remnants of a yellow and red cord. Light scrapes and marks, otherwise, good very fine. From the Dr. Pelc Dens Sapientiae Collection, USA. This is a perfect example of a papal seal (or bulla) of the type first issued by Gregory VII (1073-1085) and continued, with almost no changes, until the later 1400s. It bears the the facing heads of Sts. Paul and Peter on the obverse and Pope's name on its reverse. The style of those heads was that of the 11th century. Gregory IX was an active proponent of the doctrine of Papal Supremacy and was particularly concerned with the fight against heresy. This resulted in his proclamation of a Crusade against the Stedinger peasantry in the area of Bremen in 1233; his foundation of the Papal Inquisition (also in 1233); his proclamation of the Decretals of 1234, which included the decision to enshrine "the perpetual servitude of the Jews" into canon law; and, in 1239, his decision that all copies of the Talmud be confiscated. This decree seems only to have been strictly observed in the France of Louis IX, with the result that, following the Disputation of Paris of 1240 between the Franciscan Nicholas Donin and four Rabbis, approximately 10,000 manuscripts of the Talmud were burnt in June 1242. Estimate: 275 CHF |  |
