I never said that the lionshead was not from that picture! If I bought the lionshead picture from lets say photobucket then there is no more copyright on it and I am aloud to use it for my design.
Or if I visited the palace and took the picture myself there would also be no copyright on it.
I did post a response to the one guy who accused me of stealing that picture. It would help if you read the whole thread before accusing me of something.
I just don't understand why you say "Or if I visited the palace and took the picture" like if it was a possibility when in fact, it is clear that the image come from a copyrighted source, if you paid for it, fine, but I highly doubt that. I think that you'll probably pay for it if and when you will win.
I did saw the post in response to the guy who accused you and the answer is confusing, do you mean that you took the pictures yourself, because it does look like it is what you meant here:
"I live in Switzerland, so figures that I have been in Italy a lot in the last couple of years. I did visit that palace and took many pictures of that great lion head. I used it as an inspiration for my coin design."I also hope, that if you bought a licence, you didn't took the standard licence because it is forbidden to use it on merchandise for sale... :/

I've contacted the artist, Mauro Carli, to clear all this up.
That's how I sees it, I might be wrong, if that is the case, sorry for the false accusations.
Just to prove my point here is a little video I made:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbsgLQa60Ww