The Byzantine Empire lasted for almost a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. The period covered by this catalogue is from the reign of Anastasius I (491518) until the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. When this catalogue was first published in 1974 it was hailed as containing more information in a concise form than any other single volume on the Byzantine series.

The collection of ancient coins in the Charles University in its present state has existed since l945. Greek, Roman and other ancient coins were entrusted to the care of the Seminar for Ancient History and put together as one collection along with the antique coins of the original collection of the Czech University held by the Seminar. The present collection formed in this way contains about 4000 pieces, mostly in silver and bronze. Connecting the catalogue arrangement to research projects undertaken in the postgraduate studies enabled research efforts of Federico Gambacorta. His catalogue contains 243 coins (chronologically from Valentinian I, the minting of Western – and Eastern Roman Empires and some Byzantine coins). The author has been very thorough and exacting in his efforts by taking pictures of all the coins, which is a very useful, even indispensable apparatus of the volume.