brothers. By the age ol" 22 he had aheady acquired 

 a high reputation as a die cutter; King Ferdinand IV 

 and Queen Carohna of Sicily entrusted him with their 

 portrait medals and Pope Pius VI granted him a 

 position at the Roman mint. 



A few years later, in 1796, with the support of 

 Cardinal Braschi, he was appointed chief engraver at 

 the mint, but he had to compromise his position con- 

 stantly to the undeserved reputation of Gioacchino 

 Hamerani, who, as a descendant of the old engraving 

 dynasty, so monopolized honors and positions at the 

 mint that Mercandetti was forced to acquiesce to a 

 kind of partnership with him. Nevertheless, some of 

 the most impressive Italian coins during these years are 

 the result of his activity. The death of Hamerani, 

 instead of releasing Mercandetti from a hopeless situa- 

 tion, plimged him into even greater troubles. Law- 

 suits with the Hamerani family and the ruthless com- 

 petition of the brothers Giuseppe and Giovanni 

 Pasinati as well as of the Passamonti brothers forced 

 him to seek peace in retreat to the village of Bellmonte 

 in Umbria.*' There he spent many years in financial 

 privation since political complications prev'ented Pope 

 Pius VII from paying him his full salary. He re- 

 turned to Rome in 1810 and continued his activity as 

 a medalist until the end of his life in 1821. 



His work includes a great ninnber of medals °- and 

 coin dies engraved under Pius \'I, the Roman Re- 

 public, and Pius \I1. Most of his works are signed 

 T. MERCANDETTI or only T.M., with the two letters 

 occasionally interlaced in a monogram. 



Owing, ])erhaps, to the strenuous conditions of his 

 life, his coins lack a uniformity of character and exe- 

 cution. Deeply emotional, the quality of his w'ork 

 depends very much on the sincerity and intensity of 

 his impressions. As a result, his creations alternate 

 between mediocrity and magnificence.'"' An artistic 

 and emotional peak of his life was reached in his 

 collaboration with the Roman Re{)ublic. The ideals 

 of liberty which swej)l from I'rance across Rome in- 

 cited a revolution against the papacy, and in 1798 the 



Roman Rcpuiilic was proclaimed. Mercandetti par- 

 ticipated actively in the public clamor to bring these 

 ideals to life. The glowing hope of his generation for 

 a betterment of past injustices is expressed in the in- 

 scription of his so-called scudo -'^ of 1799 (fig. 39). 



Fig. 3g. — Roman Replblic. scudo, year \'II [1799] '* 

 (.Author's photo) 



Like an exultant cry, the words "Giorno che vale di 

 tanti anni il pianto" (a day which compensates for the 

 weeping of so many years) appears along w-ith the date 

 of the French Revolutionary calendar *' on the 

 reverse of this piece. 



The obverse is one of the most elociuent expressions 

 in coinage of the bold spirit of revolution. The com- 

 plexity of emblematic representation does not over- 

 crowd the field but flows into a logical sequence 

 through a masterful emploxinent of gradation and 

 interposition on different plastic planes. The ped- 

 estal, bearing the symbol of the ruthless fight for free- 

 dom — the dagger — plus the symbol of attained lib- 



»i Patricnani {Pici VII, p. 25) states that the other artLsts 

 who could not rompcte with his artistic abihty resorted to the 

 deceitful expedient of deleting his signature from the medal 

 dies. For an e.xampic, see the medal of year \l (ibid., medal 

 41). 



»2 Edwards, pis. 16, 40. 



<« Patricnani (Pio I'll, p. 28), concurring with .Xncona's 

 opinion, ascribes mannerism to Meicandetti's style, especially 

 during his last years of activity. 



•'< Martinori (fasc. 22, p. 21) insists that this piece, generally 



called a scudo, was in fact a medal which was distributed to a 

 group of young patriots clad in costumes of ancient Romans 

 during a festivity arranged in the Forum by the Minister of 

 Interior, .\ntonio Franccschi, February 15, 1799 (27 Piovoso, 

 year VII). 



"' C\7, vol. 17, coin 13; Spaziani-Testa, / Romani Ponlefici, 

 p. 140, coin 262. 



"0 The 27 Piovoso (year VT), or February 15, 1798, was pro- 

 claimed by French General Louis Alexandre Berthicr as the 

 day of establishment of the independent Roman Republic. 



20 



BLL.I.FIIN 229: CO.N'lRIBiriO.NS 1 ROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY .AND TECHNOLOGY 



