The medal, one of the oldest in our collections, is a masterpiece of the early days of medal-making in Germany. The drawings are by Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Krafft, goldsmith and coin engraver at the Nuremberg Mint, made the medal. On the occasion of the first Diet presided by Charles V (1500-1558), the city of Nuremberg, where diets were then traditionally held during his reign, had planned to offer him one hundred copies of the medal to commemorate his accession to imperial dignity in 1521. Ultimately this Diet was held in Worms due to a plague epidemic in Nuremberg. Most of the 167 copies of the medal were therefore recast as early as 1537. Today, this medal is extremely rare: only thirteen copies are extant, kept mostly in large public collections. Their weight varies between 219 and 178 g.

Celebrated as a triumph of the coining technology of the time, these coins were worth a staggering 150 florins – while the “normal” value of monetary coins was 2 to 5 florins. The engraver used a new method by which coins could be struck with a significant relief from blanks cast with most of the patterns already on them. The striking process then served to improve accuracy of detail and ensure a perfect finish. In fact, there were two distinct striking operations for each of the faces, and a total of four matrices were necessary: the head of the Emperor and the two-headed eagle, and the two circles of coats of arms. The original dies for the reverse were lost due to minting problems, so that ultimately there are two different variants of the medal.

This could be the reason why our medal was not struck but cast, then gilded and enamelled. The enamel – green, red, white, blue and black – enhances the crown, the coats of arms, the Golden Fleece and the plumage of the eagle. Whereas partially enamelled jewels are well-known in Renaissance goldsmithery, this technique is used only occasionally for medals.