Mint Organisation in Late Medieval Italy

The paper offers a summary of research on Italian medieval mints since the publication of the 8th Oxford symposium on coinage and monetary history, published n 1988. The relevance of medieval Italian mints has been enhanced in terms of skills, technology, and administration of the large 'factory' mints. The advanced experience of Italian mints of the Kingdom of Sicily and of many Communes, determined the influence of Italian merchants as farmers of many mints across Europe (royal or ecclesiastic. Knowledge and study of Italian mints has been made easier by the publication in 2011 of the 2 volumes book Le zecche Italiane fino all’Unità, edited by Travaini: here many authors wrote entries for the Italian mints,gathering information and archival references. In this way research has been able to progress within a larger comparative frame. Graphs and maps are provided.