Leopold I, Duke of Lorraine
Hercules Opening Passage for Mercury
Bronze, 57.0 mm Ø, 54.5 g
By Ferdinand de Saint-Urbain, 1705.
Obverse: Bust of Leopold I facing right, wearing peruke. Around, LEOP . I . D . G . LOT . BAR . D . REX . IER . P . P . ET . DELITIVM . (Leopold I, Grand Duke of Lorraine and Bar, ..., Father of His Country ...). On truncation, S . V . (Saint-Urbain).
Reverse: On the right, Hercules breaks rocks from a cliff with his club, opening a passageway for Mercury, who approaches from the background on the left. Above and around, VITAE · CONSVLIT · ATQVE · VIAE · (He Provides for Lives and Roads). In exergue, · MDCCV · (1705); in smaller lettering to left just below the exergual line, S · V · (Saint-Urbain).
The son of Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, and Eleonora Maria Josefa of Austria, Leopold Joseph Charles Dominique Agapet Hyacinthe was born on September 11, 1679. Upon his father's death in 1690, Leopold inherited the Duchies of Lorraine and Bar, which had been (and were still) occupied by Louis XIV of France. After the Nine Years' War, the Treaty of Ryswick, signed on October 30, 1697, restored the duchies to the House of Lorraine. After much military destruction, Leopold reconstructed and repopulated the duchy. This medal commemorates one such project, the opening of a road from Nancy to Toul. Leopold died on March 27, 1729, after contracting a fever while on a walk.
References:
Norris and Weber 1976, no. 119