Dea Moneta
login
Banner Artemide LVII
Lot # 716 - Damietta. John of Brienne, King (1210-1212), Regent (1212-1225). BI Denier, Acre mint (?). D/ Patent cross; pellets (?) in second and third quarters. R/ Head facing, with curled hair, and wearing crown with three pellets. Malloy 43; Schl. pl. III, 31; Metcalf 203/205. BI. 0.53 g. 18.50 mm. R. Exceptional condition for issue. EF. Damietta had a crucial role during the time of the Crusades. In 1169, a fleet from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with support from the Byzantine Empire, attacked the port, but the besiegers returned home without any success since it was defended by Saladin. During preparations for the Fifth Crusade in 1217, it was decided that Damietta should be the focus of attack because of its strategical position. Control of Damietta meant control of the Nile, and from there the crusaders believed they would be able to conquer Egypt and then the Palestine and Jerusalem. After the siege of Damietta of 1218–1219, the port was occupied by the Crusaders. In 1221 the Crusaders attempted to march to Cairo, but were destroyed by the combination of nature and Muslim defenses. Damietta was also the object of the Seventh Crusade, led by Louis IX of France. His fleet arrived there in 1249 and quickly captured the fort, which he refused to hand over to the nominal king of Jerusalem, to whom it had been promised during the Fifth Crusade. However, having been taken prisoner with his army in April 1250, Louis was obliged to surrender Damietta as ransom. Hearing that Louis was preparing a new crusade, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in view of the importance of the town to the Crusaders, destroyed it in 1251 and rebuilt it with stronger fortifications a few kilometers from the river in the early 1260s, making the mouth of the Nile at Damietta impassable for ships.
The Last Ruler of Lusignan Kingdom
Lot # 730 - Cyprus. Catherine Cornaro, Second Sole Reign (1474-1489). AR Gros, third type. D/ Queen standing facing on small throne, holds scepter in right, crucifer orb in left hand; to left, S; to right P. R/ Cross of Jerusalem, square in center. Malloy 171; Schl. -; cf. pl. VII, 26; Metcalf -; cf. 813. AR. 3.42 g. 25.00 mm. RR. Very rare. Unusual complete flan, fully readable. Good VF. Caterina became monarch when James III died in August 1474 before his first birthday, probably from illness, even if it was rumored that he had been poisoned by Venice or Charlotte's partisans. The kingdom had long since declined, and had been a tributary state of the Mameluks since 1426. Under Caterina, who ruled Cyprus from 1474 to 1489, the island was controlled by Venetian merchants. In 1488 the republic, fearing that Sultan Bayezid II intended to attack Cyprus, and having also discovered a plot to marry Caterina to Alfonso II of Naples decided to recall the queen to Venice and formally annex the island. On 14 March 1489 she was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the country to the Republic of Venice. The last Crusader state became a colony of Venice, and as compensation, Catherine was allowed to retain the title of queen and was made lady of Asolo, a county on the Terraferma of the Republic of Venice in the Veneto region, in 1489. Asolo soon gained a reputation as a court of literary and artistic distinction, mainly as a result of it being the fictitious setting for Pietro Bembo's platonic dialogues on love, Gli Asolani. Caterina lived in Asolo until 1509, when the League of Cambrai sacked the town, then fled to Venice where she lived for another year, dying on July 10, 1510.