France, Principality of Dombes, AR 1/12 Écu (Luigino or 5 Sols), 1668

The 5 sols - 1/12 écu denomination (introduced by King Louis XIII in 1641) became widely known as "Luigini". Feudal issuers like Dombes, as well as numerous Italian mints that later copied these types, produced them in large quantities for trade and circulation in the Levant.

Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans (29 May 1627 - 5 April 1693), widely known as 'La Grande Mademoiselle', was one of the most powerful and independently wealthy figures of 17th century France. As the daughter of Gaston d’Orléans and the first cousin of King Louis XIV, she inherited a vast fortune that made her the richest single princess in Europe.

She is famously remembered for her role in the Fronde civil war, where she actively supported the rebels against the royal court, even ordering the cannons of the Bastille to fire upon the royal army to protect her allies. This act led to her temporary banishment from Paris, and her later years were defined by a scandalous, forbidden love affair with the Duke of Lauzun.

She never married and died in Paris on 5 April 1693 and was buried at the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis outside Paris.

Her numismatic legacy is tied directly to her hereditary title as the Sovereign Princess of Dombes, an autonomous fiefdom that granted her the right to mint her own independent coinage. Operating from her mint at Trévoux, she capitalised heavily on the massive trade boom of the 1660's, when the Ottoman Empire and the Levant developed an insatiable demand for small silver coins known as Luigini. Under her authority, the Trévoux mint produced five sols pieces featuring her draped profile. The operation became so highly lucrative that foreign lords across Italy began counterfeiting and imitating the distinct Dombes style coins to cash in on the Mediterranean trade market.