Roger II tari gold coin Palermo with Arabic inscriptions

A tarì (from

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

طري ''ṭarī'', lit. "fresh" or "newly minted money") was the Christian designation of a type of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

coin of Islamic origin minted in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

and Southern Italy from about 913 to the 13th century.

History

In the Islamic world, this type of coin was designated under the name ''ruba'i'', or quarter- dinar, as it weighed of gold. The ruba'i had been minted by the

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

in Sicily, unlike the Muslim rulers of

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, who preferred the larger dinar. It became highly popular as it was smaller and therefore more convenient than the large-sized dinar. The tarì were so widespread that imitations were made in Southern Italy (

Amalfi Amalfi (, , ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy, on the Gulf of Salerno. It lies at the mouth of a deep ravine, at the foot of Monte Cerreto (1,315 metres, 4,314 feet), surrounded by dramati ...

and Salerno) from the mid-tenth century, which only used illegible "

pseudo-Kufic Pseudo-Kufic, or Kufesque, also sometimes Pseudo-Arabic, is a style of decoration used during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,Encyclopaedia BritannicaBeautiful Gibberish: Fake Arabic in Medieval and Renaissance Art/ref> consisting of imitation ...

" imitations of Arabic. When the

Normans The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. ...

invaded Sicily in the 11th century, they issued tarì coins bearing legends in

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. Roger II of Sicily issued such coins, becoming the only Western ruler at that time to mint gold coins. Their composition was 16 carat gold (0.681

fineness The fineness of a precious metal object (coin, bar, jewelry, etc.) represents the weight of ''fine metal'' therein, in proportion to the total weight which includes alloying base metals and any impurities. Alloy metals are added to increase hardne ...

) with some adjunction of

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

. The tarì were also produced by the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...

s and the early Angevins. The tarì coins were generally minted from African gold obtained from Misrata or

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

Northern Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

in exchange for grain.Blanchard, p. 196 Nowadays, the tari is a subunit (1/12) of the scudo, souvenir coins issued by the

Sovereign Military Order of Malta The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta ( it, Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta; ...

References

Citations

Works cited

*Blanchard, Ian. ''Mining, Metallurgy and Minting in the Middle Ages''.

Franz Steiner Verlag Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH is a German academic publishing house, with headquarters in Stuttgart. Founded in 1949 in Wiesbaden, its specialty is history, although it also publishes works in geography, philosophy, law, and musicology. Journals p ...

, 2001.

*Cardini, Franco. ''Europe and Islam''. Blackwell publishing, Blackwell Publishing, 2001.

*Grierson, Philip. ''Medieval European Coinage''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

, 1998.

*Matthew, Donald, ''The Norman kingdom of Sicily'' Cambridge University Press, 1992

History

References

Citations

Works cited

See also