arms on the reverse of the ducats of Hungary was frequently modified to reflect changed circumstances. In 1470, Matthias Corvinus replaced the coat of arms by a Madonna. Hungary struck ducats until 1915, even under Austrian rule. These were used as trade coins and several of the later dates have been restruck. Adoption, 15th and 16th centuries In the 15th and 16th centuries, international traders in Western Europe shifted from the florin to the ducat as their preferred currency, with ducats often co-circulating with locally minted gold coins like the Rhenish guilder, French écu and Spanish escudo. As rulers reformed their currencies, they frequently used the ducat as a model. The Mamluk ashrafi and the Ottoman sultani are examples. In 1497, Spain reformed its gold into a copy of the ducat which was known as the from 1504. 23¾ carats fine and slightly smaller than the Venetian ducat, each had about 3.484 g of pure gold and was reckoned as 375 maravedís, the typical unit of account at the time. The Holy Roman Emperor MaximilianI initiated his own currency reform, minting gold ducats in Austria from 1511. Gold ducats and florins were established through the rest of the Holy Roman Empire by minting ordinances () in 1524, 1559, and later. The ducat weighed 3.49 grams and was 23⅔ carats fine (3.442 g of pure gold) and exchanged at a ratio of 8 ducats for 11 Rhenish florins, which weighed 3.25 grams and were 18½ carats fine (2.503 g of pure gold). The German territories retained these standards until the 19th century. Ducats of the Netherlands The Dutch Revolt gave its seven northern provinces control of their coinage. The collapse of the government of Francis of Anjou in 1583, however, left them without a constitutional ruler to name on those coins. They fell back on the longstanding regional tradition of imitating well accepted foreign coins. In this case they avoided political complications by copying obsolete coins. The gold coins Ferdinand and Isabella issued to the standards of the ducat were widely copied and called ducats. They also imitated the Hungarian ducat and those coins had more influence on the subsequent coinage of the United Provinces. Since the Netherlands became a dominant international trader, the influence of these ducats was global. At first, ducats of Hungarian type struck in the Netherlands had a standing figure on the obverse with the crown and