Medallion with the portraits of Louis II and Queen Mary

11/2006

The oldest Hungarian-made medals discovered so far were made during the reign of King Matthias. Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, King Matthias, too, ordered medals showing his own image; these were mostly large pieces made of cast metal. The reform of the monetary system-a switch-over from the small denarius and grossus to the much larger thaler-resulted in an increased area to be filled, thus providing an opportunity for the medalists to design coins showing portraits and scenes. In the sixteenth century a large proportion of the medals were made in mints, using the same technique as for coins and most of the time in a weight either equal to or a fraction of, and sometime even a multiple of, the weight of the coins. This is why the sixteenth-century memorial medals are often called memorial thalers.
In Hungary, the mint at Körmöcbánya always played an important part in the country's coin and medal minting. Around 1532 it was there that Christoph Fuessl designed the memorial Mohács Thaler, with the pictures of the king, who had perished in the battle, and his wife.

On the obverse of the medal, framed in a twined border, the profiles of King Louis II and Queen Maria face each other, with floral ornamentation in the background. In the exergue there are the letters LUDO:UNGAR: BOHE:QUE / REGIS ET MARIAE RE GINAE  DULCISS CONV/GIS AC PROCES IN FLAN.

Although the year 1526 is given on the. medal, reference is made to Maria's journey to Flanders, which could only have been after 1531, when-at the request of her brother, Charles V (1519-1556), also king of Spain-, she accepted the regency of Flanders.
The medal shown here is a very early masterpiece of Hungarian coinage-of a craft previously almost non-existent in the country.