‘Adding to the Good Silver with Other Trickery’ : Purity and Contamination in Clement VII’s Emergency Currency

In early modern sites of smithing and minting, the point of flux – when solid metal became liquid – was always opportune for contamination and deceit. The reputations of metalworkers could turn on it. In chaotic, unregulated circumstances, the handling of molten gold and silver became even more suspect. This essay considers purity and contamination with respect to two acts of metallic transformation during the Sack of Rome in 1527, when papal treasures were melted down to consolidate financial assets and produce emergency currency. In addition to the expected anxieties surrounding the fineness of gold and silver in these circumstances, the two events also suggest an alternate conception of metallic purity that takes into account metal’s protean transit between forms.