INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Ninfa, Caetani and Coins
Jan 24 2018

By Esme Howard

The romantic garden of Ninfa, just 65 miles south of Rome, was created by the Caetani family almost one hundred years ago, and lies among the eloquent ruins of a small but affluent medieval town, which in turn grew out of Roman and papal settlements, and passed to the Caetani in the early fourteenth century. Their family history marks every stretch of the Tyrrhenian coastland – from Pisa, Rome, Cisterna, Ninfa, and Sermoneta and on down to Fondi, Gaeta and Naples. In the family history Domus Caietana, the ninth-century Anatolio, Lord of Gaeta, is the first of the Caetani to gain regional prominence.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Some Talk of Alexander
Jan 24 2018

By Jack West-Sherring

Alexander the Great’s victory over the Indian king Porus at the River Hydaspes (326 BC) was celebrated in commemorative Decadrachms known as ‘Porus medallions’. Discovered in Afghanistan in the late 19th century and bequeathed in 1926 to the British Museum, the example known as the ‘Frank medallion’ (see below) features on its obverse a Macedonian cavalryman locked in mortal combat with two Indian warriors astride a large elephant.