Cagiati, The monetary types of the mint of Salerno, edited by Lombardi

Memmo Cagiati, The monetary types of the Salerno mint. Atlante-Prezzario, edited by Luca Lombardi, Preface by Giuseppe Ruotolo, work published under the aegis of the Mediterranean Society of Numismatic Metrology, Biblionumis Edizioni, Terlizzi 2018, pp. XIV, 106 including 44 plates, richly illustrated, 25 x 18 cm, editorial hardcover, ISBN 978-88-99512-02-6.

Anastatic reprint of the ed. Royal Establishment of Graphic Arts Enrico Marino, Caserta 1925.

Coinage from Salerno has always fascinated numismatists: its long history that includes Lombard, Norman and Swabian issues makes it particularly interesting. If one abstracts from the simple propositions of Salerno coins present in the numismatic works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the first systematic work on these issues, published at the end of the nineteenth century, is due to the Benedictine father Gaetano Foresio. However, Foresio's classifications do not appear convincing and the scholars contemporary to the author already realized this. In the following years, unpublished coins were identified, which are described by Arthur Sambon in a work published in Paris in 1919. However, Sambon does not examine the coins of the Salerno mint in an organic way, but proposes a classification of the alleged Lombard issues including, next to a few types in gold, silver deniers dated to the 9th century and copper types dated between the 10th and 11th centuries. Memmo Cagiati (1869-1926) in 1925 considerably widened the field of investigation in the work "The monetary types of the Salerno mint", examining Lombard, Norman and Swabian coins, confirming and deepening what Sambon proposed. The volume by Cagiati was printed in Caserta in the Enrico Marino Royal Plant of Graphic Arts in a small number of copies: only a few scholars had the opportunity to get hold of it and it soon became a bibliographic rarity. There are several characteristics that make the work important and original, including the author's Preface - where a careful and detailed history of the studies involving these coins is proposed - and the drawings, which present ideal specimens, the evident result of meticulous observation. of many pieces, a circumstance that greatly facilitates the scientific study of the extraordinary Salerno coins. Reprinted today by Luca Lombardi with a Preface by Giuseppe Ruotolo, the work has been published in a limited number of copies and in a particularly well-finished editorial format. The volume is in fact published on ivory paper and bound with a cardboard cover. As proof of the exceptional nature of this publishing event, the publication is made under the aegis of the Mediterranean Society of Numismatic Metrology.