Lorraine. Duke René II (1473-1508), Gold Florin, undated. St. Nicholas holding staff. Rev. Arms of Hungary, Naples, Jerusalem, Aragon, Anjou and Bar, in center, arms of Lorraine (Fr 139). In NGC holder graded AU 53, sharply struck example. Rare. Value $14,000 - UP
The obverse of the present florin depicts St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra (270-342), who is perhaps best known for his subsequent association with Santa Claus. Like his red-suited alter ego, the St. Nicholas also had a reputation for gift giving and for his care of children. He is famously said to have secretly given money to a destitute man to provide for his three young daughters. The florin type, however, represents a far more dramatic event in the legendary life of the saint. Here, St. Nicholas stands in his full bishop's attire blessing three small children seated and praying on top of a barrel. According to an apocryphal tradition, the saint discovered that an evil butcher had killed three children and pickled their bodies in brine with the intention of selling them later as pork during a famine(!). St. Nicholas, imploring the mercy of God, is then reported to have raised the children back to life. It is this moment, when the children have emerged alive again from the pickling barrel, that is represented on this coin.

More than a century after his death, the church in Asia Minor where St. Nicholas had been bishop was rebuilt on a grander scale by the Emperor Theodosius II. The body of the former bishop was interred in a sarcophagus beneath the church, which was then renamed the Church of St. Nicholas. Every year his relics were said to exude a liquid with the scent of rose water called "myrrh" by the faithful. This liquid was widely believed to have miraculous properties. In 1087, Italian sailors from Bari stole the relics and "translated" them to their home town. Two years after this so-called "holy robbery," Pope Urban II inaugurated the Basilica of Saint Nicholas at Bari. Although the removal of St. Nicholas' relics remains a sore point with the Greek Orthodox Church to this day, it was assumed by Catholics that the saint cannot have been overly upset about it since the relics have reportedly continued to produce "myrrh."

It is now in his role as patron saint of Bari that St. Nicholas appears on this florin. Bari was an important part of the Kingdom of Naples (i.e., the peninsular territory of the Kingdom of Sicily after its separation from the island of Sicily in 1282), which René II ruled from 1493 to 1508. The obverse legend, however, identifies René II only as King of Sicily, completely ignoring the division between the island and peninsular territories and that contemporary kings from the Spanish House of Trastámara actually reigned in Sicily proper.