(sold for $631.0)

CoinWorldTV 1648, Knights of Malta, Jean-Paul Lascaris Castellar. Silver 4 Tari Coin. VF-

Mint Year: 1648
Mint Place: Valetta
Denomination: 4 Tari
Reference: Rastelli 19, KM-14. R!
Condition: Dark oxidation deposits, cleaned in the past, otherwise VF+
Weight: 10.54gm
Diameter: 32mm
Material: Silver

Obverse: Horizontal severed head of St. John the Baptist.
Legend: S.IOAN.BAP.ORA.PRONOBIS.PRO.NO

Reverse: Crowned coat-of-arms of the Grand Master, splitting value (T-4).
Legend: + F.IO.PAVLVS.LASCARIS.M.M.H.H.I.1648

Giovanni Paolo Lascaris di Ventimiglia e Castellar (28 June 1560 – 14 August 1657) was an Italian nobleman and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.

Lascaris was born on 28 June 1560, the second son of Giannetto Lascaris and his wife Franceschetta di Agostino Lascaris of the ancient family of the Counts of Ventimiglia, related to the Lascaris who were emperors of the Byzantine Nicaean Empire.

In 1584, he entered the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. As a member of the order he lived for over thirty years in a priory and was responsible for a range of monastic functions. He was put in charge of the order's grain supplies and later, in 1615, the order's furnaces across the island. He comported himself well and was promoted to master of the "St Anthony" prison.

In 1632 he was sent as ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain.

On the death of Grand Master Antoine de Paule, there were three candidates for election as Grand Master; Lascaris, Signorino Gattinara (about whom little is known) and Martin de Redin. Inquisitor Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII) attended as representative of Pope Urban VIII. Failing to secure enough votes for his own election, de Redin encouraged his supporters to instead side with Lascaris. On 16 June 1636, Lascaris was elected Grand Master of the Order of Malta, a position he held until his death.

The following year, Lascaris commissioned a series of towers as fortifications around the island of Malta, now known as the Lascaris towers. The towers were designed and built by papal military architect, Vincenzo Maculani. Lascaris Battery was named in his honor.

Martin de Redin, who succeeded Lascaris as Grand Master of the Order, commissioned further towers and the combined collection of fortifications is often referred to as the De Redin towers.

In 1639, Lascaris implemented a ban on women wearing masks or attending masked balls during carnivale. The ban was unpopular and locals blamed Lascaris' Jesuit confessor, Father Cassia. They took to the streets to poke fun at the Jesuits and Lascaris had one of the instigators arrested. A Jesuit college was ransacked as retaliation and those responsible demanded that Lascaris banish the Jesuit order from Malta, which he did for a short time while tensions abated. The incident is still remembered today as Lascaris' ban.

Also in 1639, Pope Urban VIII asked Lascaris to intervene in the First War of Castro by sending naval forces owned by the order to assist papal troops against the Dukes of Parma; specifically galleons and other warships. But the Dukes of Parma, as well as the Duchy of Venice, the Duchy of Florence and Duchy of Modena (who were allied with them), appealed to Lascaris not to provide the pope with support.

Lascaris played a dangerous double game; he sent warships to aid the pope while assuring the Dukes they were there only as a show of force and would not participate in the conflict. Sure enough, conflict was limited to on-land skirmishes and Lascaris' troops never fired a single shot.

In 1651, the Knights, with Lascaris's approval, bought the island of Saint-Christophe, along with the dependent islands of Saint Croix, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Martin, from the failing Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique. The Knights' ambassador to the French court, Jacques de Souvré, signed the agreement. The Order's proprietary rights were confirmed in a treaty with France two years later: while the king would remain sovereign, the Knights would have complete temporal and spiritual jurisdiction on their islands. The only limits to their rule were that they could only send French knights to govern the islands, and upon the accession of each new King of France they were to provide a gold crown worth 1,000 écus. In 1665, after Lascaris's death, the Knights sold their islands back to France, ending their brief colonial project.

In October 1652 Pope Innocent X closed a number of monasteries including one on Gozo. However, it was opened again after just four months thanks to intervention from Lascaris who was close to the monks of the order. A portrait of Lascaris still hangs in the monastery today.

The Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, Order of St. John, Knights of Malta, and Chevaliers of Malta; French: Ordre des Hospitaliers, Maltese: Ordni ta' San Gwann) was a Christian organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1080 to provide care for poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. After the Western Christian reconquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade it became a religious/military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the Order operated from Rhodes, over which it was sovereign, and later from Malta where it administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily.

The Order lost many of its European holdings following the rise of Protestantism and French Egalitarianism, but survived on Malta. The property of the English branch was confiscated in 1540. In 1577, the German Bailiwick of Brandenburg became Lutheran, but continued to pay its financial contribution to the Order until the branch was turned into a merit Order by the King of Prussia in 1812. The "Johanniter Orden" was restored as a Prussian Order of Knights Hospitaller in 1852.

The Knights of Malta had a strong presence within the Imperial Russian Navy and the pre-revolutionary French Navy. When De Poincy was appointed governor of the French colony on St. Kitts in 1639 he was a prominent Knight of St. John and dressed his retinue with the emblems of the Order. In 1651, the Knights bought from the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique the islands of Sainte-Christophe, Saint Martin, and Saint Barthélemy. The Order's presence in the Caribbean was eclipsed with De Poincy's death in 1660. He had also bought the island of Saint Croix as his personal estate and deeded it to the Knights of St. John. In 1665, the order sold their Caribbean possessions to the French West India Company, ending the Order's presence in that region.

The decree of the French National Assembly Abolishing the Feudal System (1789) abolished the Order in France: V. Tithes of every description, as well as the dues which have been substituted for them, under whatever denomination they are known or collected (even when compounded for), possessed by secular or regular congregations, by holders of benefices, members of corporations (including the Order of Malta and other religious and military orders), as well as those devoted to the maintenance of churches, those impropriated to lay persons and those substituted for the portion congrue, are abolished (...) (The Decree Abolishing the Feudal System, August 11, 1789, J.H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2: 404-409) The French Revolutionary Government seized the assets and properties of the Order in France in 1792.

Only 1$ shipping for each additional coin purchased!

type to read more
Price
This coin has been sold for   $631.0

Notes: http://www.ebay.com/itm/152162742490 2016-07-17

Page Cache: http://st.coinshome.net/page-cache/0ee2a23246ac4f8e9e0f057c4b7db788.html
Posted by: anonymous
2016-07-11
 
Additional views:
2024-03-21 - New coin is added to 1 Dollar Canada Silver George VI (1895-1952)


    1 Dollar Canada Silver George VI (1895-1952)
group has    9 coins / 8 prices



CANADA 1 Dollar 1939 - Silver .800 - Royal Visit - XF - 4337
2024-03-26 - Historical Coin Prices
5 Ore Sweden Copper
Coin prices from public sources
Details
You may be interested in ...
Market
Dynasty tree and coins
Check yourself!

Coin Puzzle
Coins Prices