A few to end the year. It wouldn't take unlimited funds to assemble a great saints "accumulation" but I am afraid the budget used for birthyear coins would not get me very far.
St. Justina was a virgin who was martyred by a sword through the bosom according to Italian legend (different from Eastern legend which has her losing her head). She is the patroness of both Padua whence she hailed, and nearby Venice. Here is a 40 soldo of Venice (Sebastien Venier doge, 1577).
Even more obscure, Saint Prosdocimus, first bishop of Padova, supposedly chosen by St. Peter. On a medieval carrarino of Padua from mid-1300s.
Never to be outdone, the Bolognese also had an early bishop who was canonized, Saint Petronius (died 450 A.D.) He restored Bologna's Christian churches after the barbarian invasions, and was honored by a vast medieval basilica on the main square, which bears his name (Papal States - Bologna grossone late 1400s)
That sounds like a nice acquisition!
Trier is one of many places that claims St. Peter as their patron (some cities have multiple patrons .... medieval equivalent of hedging one's bets?). It seems that many of the HRE "imperial cities" that had an archbishop as prince feature St. Peter on some of their coins (Mainz, Cologne, Frankfurt, etc)
Beyond the "count" of saints, there is also the variety of iconography for some of those saints, including St. Peter. Since we have some posters who are interested in scripture, there are at least three versions of St. Peter one can find on coins, with iconography relating to three different scripture passages.
First, we have a bald man (with a halo, of course!) holding keys. Probably Peter is pictured as bald because it is known that he died around 64 A.D. when he would have been an old man. The keys? In Matthew 16:18 Peter is given the keys to the kingdon of heaven. Trier is one of the places that shows St. Peter like this (florin of late 14th century showing Peter with keys in right hand, book in left)), but not surprisingly he is also shown holding keys in many Papal States coins
Matthew 4:18 is the passage in which St. Peter and St. Andrew, both fisherman, are recruiited by Jesus. There are some early Papal States coins depicting St Peter as a fisherman, like this rare florin (Pope Adrian VI 1522-23) that just sold at Heritage for $12,500
Or, if you have a budget like mine, there is a nice, silver Vatican 5 lire coin issued between 1927 and 1941 with St. Peter as fisherman, that you can nab in high grade for under 20 bucks.
Last, there is Matthew 14:30 in which Peter tries to follow Jesus walking across the water and has to be saved.
So many coins, so little time (and money) 
A single incident, the massacre of the Theban legion, gave rise to a number of Christian patron saints who wound up on medieval coins of northern Italy and Switzerland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Legion
elheron found St. Moritz (Maurice in French and Mauritius in Latin), who was the leader of this army. St. Antoninus of Piaczenza was also added to the list previously, as was St. Ursus of Solothurn.
Most recently, I ran across St. Constantius, patron saint of Carmagnola in northwest Italy, and also reputedly an officer in this army:
@elheron-grande wrote:Hola TDZ - your post of 12 Jan 2015 1805: An outstanding 'find'! In addition, the crowned
coat of arms is a magnificent rendition of a coat of arms. Regardvs,
xx
I wish a few of these would "find" their way into my collection, but I think I need a ten year plan ... not like the 1 - 2 year plan of the birthyear collection.
Even with a somewhat vague plan I have acquired a nice St. Andrew, and St. Paul (both HRE issues no less!), a St. Peter in boat who will join the S. Peter with keys already in my collection. I have bids on some others at the moment (outside of Ebay) ... I will focus on apostles and "early" martyrs for now. That means there is more from HRE on the list: St. Stephen, St. Moritz, etc.
So, as we speak of martyrs, I ran across yet ANOTHER group of martyrs from the famous Theban legion: Felix, Regula, and Exuperantius, patron saints of Zurich. This rather rare coin (1512 Thaler, sold for 10,000 CHF recently) will not be on my list
A question for anyone out there who may have a world coin reference that goes back before 1500.
Here is a photo of the reverse of a teston from Gregory XIII (currently for sale on Ebay). There were several different types of testons minted during his reign.
Posed with a cross, one might think this is a female saint, but she seems to lack a halo. Sometimes allegorical figures are found on the reverse of Papal States testons, sometimes saints (most often Peter and Paul, though). The reverse legend often has the saint's name in Latin (SANCTVS PETRVS, for example), but not always.
Ideas?
I believe the figure is a personification of Faith. "Never Fail" is the google translation of the Latin.
