The History of Currency, 1252 to 1896

The monetary history of Europe begins in the thirteenth century, and in the Italian peninsula. Its starting-point is the era of the reintroduction of gold into the coinages of the Western nations, and is definitely marked for us by the minting of the gold florin of Florence in 1252. For all practical purposes gold had gone out of use since the seventh century, and after the submersion of the Roman Empire; and the currencies of the nations of mediæval Europe rested on a silver basis entirely.