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ITALY: Vittorio Emanuele III, 1900-1946, AR medal (26.24g), 1909, AU

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins - Europe Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:75.00 - 100.00 USD
ITALY: Vittorio Emanuele III, 1900-1946, AR medal (26.24g), 1909, AU
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This item SOLD at 2023 Oct 31 @ 13:28UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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ITALY: Vittorio Emanuele III, 1900-1946, AR medal (26.24g), 1909, 37mm silver medal by A. Apolloni and L. Giorgi for the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of San Martino; an allegorical figure of turreted Italy standing, vaulted to the left, holding out an olive branch to three men holding a sword, a rifle and a banner, with crowned Savoy eagle, with spread wings below, A. APOLLONI M. - L. GIORGI I. in exergue // PRIMO / CINQVANTENARIO / DELLA BATTAGLIA / DI SAN MARTINO / MDCCCLIX - MCMIX within plaque atop oak leaf wreath, scroll atop, mint hallmarks below, struck at the Rome mint, AU. Luigi Giorgi was born in 1848 in the town of Lucca in Tuscany. He came from a family of silversmiths and his father, Paolo Giorgi, was a silversmith and chaser. Due to financial difficulties his father found work in Brazil and moved there living and working in both Rio de Janeiro and San Paolo for the elite and the Brazilian aristocracy including the Emperor Pedro II de Alcantara. At a very young age he contracted a severe case of smallpox which damaged his eyes and left him with diminished sight. Still later he lost the use of his left eye when a passing horse and buggy snapping a whip hit him in the face. His mother passed away of Cholera in the winter of 1855-56 leaving him and his brothers to his paternal uncle who was a friar and theologian at the Pia Casa Charity House of Lucca where he would learn to be an umbrella maker. As a young man he showed a talent, and developed a passion for, music and art but was unable to pursue these passions until he left the trade school to move in with his sister where he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts and began to work as a silversmith in the Panelli workshop. It is here where people began to take notice of his work and he began his life as an artist. In 1866 he sought to join the military, specifically the Garibaldi Volunteers during campaigns to unify Italy. Unfortunately, he was not allowed to enlist because of his generally poor eyesight and the total loss of his left eye. In that same year he met and married Cesira Fannucchi. Soon after he married, he left the Panelli workshop opening his own workshop in Lucca offering his services as an engraver, chiseler and gold / silversmith and creating etched jewels, seals, and medals for public and private institutions. His rising fame as a talented engraver lead to him being chosen to go to Florence to work on the commemorative medals in dedication to the deceased Giuseppe Garibaldi, a great honor for him as he was a man Giorgi greatly admired. Here he would perfect and his engraving techniques and create a number of outstanding works from his new workshop at the Lungarino Serristori. These works include many commemorative medals, engraving the seal for Florence and many other different provinces and private clients as well as his continued work as a goldsmith, jeweler and carver. Giorgi eventually became one of the best-known engravers in the relatively new Kingdom of Italy which led to his appointment as Chief Engraver at the Royal Mint in Rome in 1906 after winning the position in a competition. He inaugurated the School of the Art of the Medal in 1907 becoming a teacher in, and later the director of, that institution. He created medals and coin dies for the Italian Kingdom, Italian Somalia, China and two Popes (Leo XII and Pius X) among others. Luigi Giorgi died in Rome on August 24, 1912 from a heart attack and is now remembered as one of, if not the, greatest engravers of his time and certainly the greatest in Italy during his day. He leaves behind a prolific body of work as proof of his great talent and his ability to overcome hardships like poverty, sickness, his damaged eyesight and the total loss of an eye, to become one of the foremost engravers of his day. His coins for China, minted during a major transition from Empire to Republic, are a marked change in the coinage of that country. With his portrait coinage of Yuan Shikai, he brought a greater level of sophistication and artistry to the new coinage of the Republic of China.