Interim van Augsburg, door Karel V op de Rijksdag afgekondigd 1549

This undated silver coin commemorates the proclamation of the Augsburg Interim by Charles V at the Diet. The Interim was an attempt to find a compromise between Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman Empire, but was largely unsuccessful. On one side, an emperor hands down laws. On the other, two figures, perhaps representing the conflicting faiths, meet. The coin thus speaks to a fraught and complex political moment. Produced in the midst of the Reformation, this object speaks to the institutional crisis caused by religious division. Numismatic records, pamphlets, and official documents could tell us more about the cultural and social implications of the Reformation. In studying this object we can ask how the politics of imagery served to influence the course of religious and political change. Art then, can be understood through the lens of social and institutional history.