Architecture on Roman coins and papal medals

Architecture on Roman coinage is a well-known phenomenon which has been studied for several decades by numismatists and historians. These so-called architecturea numismatica studies often focussed on the reconstruction and topography of the depicted monuments. More recently, scholars have begun to analyze why these buildings actually appear on Roman coins, and have started to examine the political, social and artistic climate in which they were made. Architectural depictions can also be found on other ancient coins, like Greek coins, but their function was different.

In Rome, the monuments were commemorated or even politicized both in Republican and in imperial times. The phenomenon of architecture on Roman coinage began around 139 BC, after the introduction of the Lex Gabinia, which increased the political strife between different Roman aristocratic families. Coins became one of the vehicles for promotion of these elite families by commemorating and politicizing the public buildings which were built by those families. After the Republic fell, the Roman emperors took over the practice of depicting architecture as a way of commemorating their achievements in the city, sometimes even before the buildings were actually built. The most famous example of these types of representations are the coins of the Flavian emperors which depict the well-known Flavian Amphitheater on the reverse, thereby commemorating this great achievement of their imperial dynasty.

The papal medal genre beginning in the fifteenth century was generally inspired by ancient Roman coinage. More specifically, the idea of depicting architecture as a form of commemoration was taken over by the Renaissance medalists. Among the most common depicted events on papal medals are the commemorations of new buildings. Like the Roman coins, these medals were used as a vehicle to promote the pope as an important builder. The production of papal medals started in the second half of the fifteenth-century and continued for several centuries. In the seventeenth century thousands of medals were issued by the Papacy and other high-ranking members of the elite in Rome. Most of the architecture depicted on papal medals were churches, like Saint Peters or Santa Maria Maggiore, but they could also be palaces like Palazzo Quirinale, or other monuments like Porta Flaminio or Porta Vaticana.

Further reading:

Nathan T. Elkins, Monuments in Miniature: Architecture on Roman Coinage (New York 2015).

Günter Fuchs, Architekturdarstellungen auf römischen Münzen der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit (Berlin 1969).

T. L. Donaldson, Architectura Numismatica: Or Architectural Medals of Classic Antiquity (London 1859).

Jason Quirk, Papal self–promotion and architecture: the medals of pope Innocent X (London 1998).

Matthew Know Averett, ‘Pressing Metal, Pressing Politics: Papal Annual Medals, 1605-1700’, Religions 7:60 (2016) 60-75.

Nathan T. Whitman. ‘The first papal medal: Sources and meaning’, The Burlington Magazine 133 (1991) 820–824.

John Varriano. ‘The architecture of papal medals’ in: Hellmut Hager and Susan Scott Munshower (eds.), Projects and Monuments in the Period of the Roman Baroque (University Park 1984) 69–81.