By the middle of the 8th century, the Lombard Empire in Italy had reached its largest extension. With the sole exemption of Sicily, Rome and Naples, it comprised the whole of the Italian peninsula. The driving force behind these expansions was King Liutprand (712-744), the issuer of this tremissis. The coin bears a schematic portrait of the king on the obverse. The reverse depicts the archangel Michael wit a crozier. Michael was yonder angel who drove Satan out of the heavens and down to hell. The Christians regard him as the weigher of souls, the one who weighs the sous of the departed on Judgment Day to balance their good deeds against their bad ones.