| Description : Charlemagne (748-814) was the eldest son of Pippin the Younger.
He was king of the Frankish Empire from 768, together with his brother Carloman I until 771. He was the first Western
European ruler since antiquity to attain the imperial dignity ‐ the imperial coronation by Pope Leo III took
place on the 25th of December 800 in St Peter's Basilica (Old St Peter's) in Rome. Charlemagne was the most
important ruler from the Carolingian dynasty; the Frankish Empire reached its greatest expansion and development of power
under him. As the most important state in the West since the fall of Western Rome, it rose to become the new great power
alongside Byzantium and the Abbasid Caliphate and encompassed the core of early medieval Latin Christendom. Aachen,
Charlemagne's main residence, remained the coronation site of the Roman German kings until the 16th century. The
coin designer Tobias Winnen shows Charlemagne's signum, according to a document issued in 790 (with his own
execution line at the top within the rhombus of the monogram), in front of the stylised ground plan of Aachen Cathedral,
built from 795 to 803 according to Byzantine models as the chapel of the Aachen Imperial Palace. Around the rhombus, the
eight supporting pillars of the cloister vault of the dome are visible, which for centuries remained the widest and highest
woodless room covering north of the Alps. The gallery surrounding the interior of the Palatine Chapel connects the octagon
with the hexagon of the outer contour by means of eight triangular and eight quadrangular compartments. Charlemagne's bones
were transferred from the tomb in the Palatine Chapel to Charlemagne's shrine inside the Gothic choir hall in 1215. The
issue occasion "KARL DER GROßE" (KARL THE GREAT) can be seen at the top, with the dates of his life "748‐814" at the
bottom. The year of issue "2023" is shown at the bottom left, the country abbreviation "D" (for Deutschland /Germany) and
the German mint mark (A = Staatliche Münze Berlin in Berlin, D = Bayerisches
Hauptmünzamt in Munich, F = Staatliche Münzen Baden‐Württemberg in Stuttgart,
G = Staatliche Münzen Baden‐Württemberg in Karlsruhe or J = Landesbetrieb
Hamburgische Münze in Hamburg) are shown at the bottom right. The initials "TW" of the designer can be found on
the right side of the rhombus. |
