A beautiful Italian bird

The Kingdom of Sicily was a kingdom which existed in the south of Italy. Originally it included the south portion of mainland Italy, as well as the island of Sicily. However, in 1282, they split up, but evidently couldn’t agree who got to keep the name, so they both ended up calling themselves “Kingdom of Sicily”. Because that wouldn’t have been confusing. The now separate mainland kingdom was also known as the Kingdom of Naples, after its capital city.

This coin is a 1 Grano from the Kingdom of Sicily (the island one). It was issued under Ferdinand III. Unless you were in the other Kingdom of Sicily, in which case Ferdinand was known as Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples. Luckily, during his reign, in 1816, the two Sicilies were reunited – into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and then he became Ferdinand I. (I couldn’t make this up). He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805.

The eagle comes from the flag of Sicily, which from 1297 until around 1800, contained two eagles on white and also red and yellow stripes (The exact arrangement changed during the 17th century).

The reverse has the inscription in a baroque frame. It initially reminded me of the 1 Denga from Russia from the 1700s

Sicily has a very complex history – and to think, I only wanted to write about this coin out of liking the eagle on it!