Il contributo italiano alla numismatica della Sicilia antica

Abstract

With reference to the Italian scientific research the Author presents the development of studies on Sicilian numismatics starting from the pre-monetal phases to the early Roman-imperial age. The fil rouge of this data presentation largely coincides with the chronology of the Italian Congresses concerning some historical problems about coinage minted in Sicily or other currency circulating in the island. The Author discusses the major “open” problems in Sicilian numismatics starting from the hypothesized contemporary presence of the litra and the obolos to the beginning of bronze coinage; from the chronology of the demareteion/decadrachm to the attribution to the tyrant Dionysius of the Syracusan series of “master signers”; from the significant political and economic influence of Ptolemaic Egypt to the “Sicilian perspective” of the introduction of the denarius system in Rome. The distinction of the scientific contributions in five main sections (the monetary findings and the (several) Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, the Historical Studies, the Metrology and Pondometry, the Art of Sicilian Coins, the Iconography of Sicilian coins) highlights the remarkable development of the studies concerning the coins iconography and the birth of a “digital numismatics” for the diachronic and diatopic study of coin types.