Desana. Giovan Bartolomeo Tizzone, 1525–1533. Testone, AR 8.76 g. ø 31 mm. IO BART' TICIO CODECI VIC IMP Armoured bust l. Rev. SANCTVS – PETRVS St. Peter nimbate and mitred, seated facing on throne, holding crosier and giving blessing. Ravegnani Morosini 2. MIR 459. Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue, possibly the finest specimen in private hands. A portrait of excellent style and unusually well struck, good extremely fine / extremely fine Ex Santamaria sale 17 October 1959, 219. The history of the small Piedmontese lordship of Desana and the Tizzoni (or Tizzone) family represents one of the most fascinating and characteristic examples of "coin-striking" imperial fiefs in north-western Italy between the 16th and 17th centuries. Located in the Vercelli plain, the territory of Desana originally belonged to the bishops of Vercelli. During the 14th and 15th centuries, the Tizzoni family – a powerful Ghibelline aristocratic house – progressively established its economic and political control over the area. The institutional turning point for the house and the territory occurred in 1510, when Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg invested Ludovico Tizzoni with the title of Count of Desana, elevating the fief to an Imperial County. Giovan Bartolomeo Tizzone succeeded Ludovico, ruling the county during a historically complex and turbulent period marked by the conflict between Francis I's France and Charles V's Empire for hegemony over the Peninsula. Please find here the video of the coin