Royal Mint — Philip II Industrialises Coin Production
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Transcript
Down beside the Eresma, Philip II created a factory that belongs to the history of industrial technology as much as to numismatics.
The Royal Mint was built from 1583 to 1588 to designs associated with Juan de Herrera, working with German specialists. It introduced roller minting technology to Spain. Water power drove machinery that produced more uniform coins than older hammer methods.
The location below the city was practical. The river supplied mechanical energy, while the nearby Alcázar represented the crown whose authority those coins carried.
A coin is a small political object: metal, standardised weight, royal image and state guarantee. The mint industrialised that trust.
Ending here also completes the city’s water story. At the aqueduct, gravity brought water into Segovia for urban life. At the mint, flowing water was converted into mechanical power. Roman infrastructure and early modern industry used the same basic resource in completely different ways.