Spain under Charles III – King of Spain: 10 August 1759 – 14 December 1788 1787 DV Gold Escudo 17mm (3.29 grams) 0.875 Gold (0.0951 oz. ASW) Madrid mint Reference: KM# 416.1a Certification: NGC VF 35 2921087-005 CAROL•III• D•G•HISP•ET IND•R• *1787*, Charles III facing right. IN· UTROQ· FELIX·A·D ·M· ·D.V· , Crowned shield in collar of The Golden Fleece
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Charles III (Spanish: Carlos; Italian: Carlo; 20 January 1716 – 14 December 1788) was King of Spain (1759-1788), after ruling Naples as Charles VII and Sicily as Charles V (1734-1759). He was the fifth son of Philip V of Spain, and the eldest son of Philip’s second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. A proponent of enlightened absolutism, he succeeded to the Spanish throne on 10 August 1759, upon the death of his half-brother Ferdinand VI, who left no heirs.
In 1731, the 15-year-old Charles became the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, as Charles I, following the death of his childless granduncle Antonio Farnese. In 1738 he married Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, daughter of Augustus III of Poland and an educated, cultured woman who gave birth to 13 children, eight of whom reached adulthood. Charles and Maria Amalia resided in Naples for 19 years.
As King of Spain, Charles III made far-reaching reforms such as promoting science and university research, facilitating trade and commerce, and modernising agriculture. He also tried to reduce the influence of the Church and avoided costly wars. His previous experience as King of Naples and Sicily proved valuable. He did not achieve complete control over the State’s finances, and was sometimes obliged to borrow to meet expenses. Most of his reforms proved to be successful and his important legacy lives on to this day.
Historian Stanley Payne wrote that Charles III “was probably the most successful European ruler of his generation. He had provided firm, consistent, intelligent leadership. He had chosen capable ministers….[his] personal life had won the respect of the people.”
Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, with there also being two large archipelagoes, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands off the African Atlantic coast, two cities, Ceuta and Melilla, on the African mainland and several small islands in the Alboran Sea near the African coast. The country’s mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. It is the only European country to have a border with an African country (Morocco) and its African territory accounts for nearly 5% of its population, mostly in the Canary Islands but also in Ceuta and Melilla.
Flag & Coat of Arms
With an area of 505,990 km2 (195,360 sq mi), Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, and the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spain’s capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao and Málaga.
Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Sp(a)n or Spania. At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations in migration from Central Europe invaded the Iberian peninsula and established themselves in relatively independent realms in its western provinces, including the Sueves, Alans and Vandals. Eventually, the Visigoths would integrate by force all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces into the Kingdom of Toledo that more or less unified politically, ecclesiastically and legally all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was then known in documents as Hispania.
The Visigothic kingdom fell to the Moors except in the north where shortly after started a process known as Reconquista. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs, who completed the eight centuries-long Reconquista in 1492. In the early modern period, Spain became one of history’s first global empires, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over 500 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world’s second most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.
Spain is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state. It is a major developed country with the world’s fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Eurozone, the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), OSCE, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and many other international organisations. Spain has a “permanent invitation” to the G20 summits that occur generally once a year.
|