The Sobieskis and Stuarts. Medal commemorating Prince Henry Benedict, Cardinal-Duke of York, Gioacchino Hamerani, 1788

gold-plated copper alloy, 1788
private collection

After the death of Charles Edward, the titular King Charles III, Cardinal Henry became the Jacobite heir to the throne as Henry IX (of England) and I (of Scotland). To commemorate this fact, a medal was minted in Rome in 1788. Its author was Gioacchino Hamerani (1761–1797), a member of the last generation of a famous family of medallists who worked for the Papal mint for two centuries, and for the Stuarts in Rome from the 1720s onward. The obverse shows a bust of Cardinal Henry Benedict, and the reverse the personification of Religion holding a cross and a book, with a lion at her feet. The inscription reads NON DESIDERIIS . HOMINVM . SED . VOLVNTATE . DEI In exergue: AN. / MDCCLXXXVIII, which can be translated as: ‘Not by the wish of man but by the will of God: Anno Domini 1788.’ This formula refers to the idea of legitimacy, emphasising that the status of Henry as titular King of England, Scotland and Ireland, was not based on popular recognition, but by divine right.