ITALY'S NEW COINS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 75, 30 March 1933, Page 7

ITALY'S NEW COINS

FASCIST AND CLASSICAL

A statement that the readjustment of coinages by European nations as a result of post-war inflation, and'subsequeht financial collapse, had produced new currencies distinguished by a marked increase in artistic merit, was made by Mr. C. J. V. Weaver, of Sydney, in a paper read on his behalf at-a-meeting of the New Zealand Numismatic . Society on Monday night. Before- the war Italy had begun to redeem her coinage frbm its dull mediocrity.1 The credit of this move was duo to her numismatic King, Victor Emanuel 111, who personally designed many beautiful coins, and by his example and encouragement had introduced to the world a company of artists whose brilliant genius Jiad wrought upon Italian coinage, as well as on the new coinage of Albania and the Vatican State, works which would stand as lasting monuments to then1 art. Oji. all the obverses the portraiture of King Emanuel 111 was carried out in a vigoro'usi and spirited style, and tlie reverses were remarkable for their siugular | beauty depicting a vitality of design and a freedom of artistic inspiration unsurpassed in the modern numismatic world. Mr. Weaver proceeded to deal with the coins separately, indicating how some ancient coin designs had been revived in the new coins of Fascist Italy. The whole series revealed the influence of ancient classic; art. ■ Symbols increasingly apparent ion the Italian coins of the Fascist regime [of Mussolini included the "fasces," which was a bundle of rods containing an axe carried by the lictors before the magistrates of ancient Rome as a smybol of authority. The Fascist salute was also depicted in the,coin designs, all of which were of striking beauty, and a credit to Italy. ..