Marescotti (Ercole)

Ercole Marescotti, 1438-1518

Obverse: (leaf) HERCVLES MARSCOTVS: Bust facing right, with long hair, wearing flat cap with back and front edges turned up, and plate-armour.

Reverse: An ‘S’ and a ‘B’on either side of Hercules, with drapery over left shoulder and tied in front of body, moving to right on rocky ground, carrying globe on left shoulder.

c. 1500. Armand rightly attributes this to the same hand as the previous medal (Hill 361) of Gozzadini; S. B., as there, for ‘Senator Bononiensis’. The two medals are perhaps from a series of such Senators, and appear to me to be comparatively recent restitutions (seventeenth century ?). But this, like that of Gozzadini, may commemorate Marescotti’s appointment in 1506. He was murdered at Bologna in June 1518 at the age of 75 (Sanuto, Diarii, xxv, 491).