Pope Pius VI, being obliged to coin a great deal of copper money, gave the minting of it to a great many cities of the
Patrimony of Peter, of
Umbria and of the
Marches, which, together with those already named, continued to strike these coins; among them were
Civitavecchia, Gubbio,
Matelica,
Ronciglione (the coins of 1799 showing the burning of this city are famous),
Terni and
Tivoli.
Pius VII suppressed all the mints except those of Rome and of Bologna. As far back as 1370 there were coins struck during the vacancies of the Holy See, by authority of the
Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, who, after the fifteenth century at least, had his name and his coat of arms be stamped on the reverse of the coin, the obverse bearing the words "SEDE VACANTE" and the date, surrounding the
crossed keys surmounted by the pavilion.
Marks on the Papal coins All papal coins, with rare exceptions, bear the name of the pope, preceded (until the time of Paul II) by a Greek cross, and nearly all of the more ancient ones bear, either on the obverse or on the reverse, the words S. PETRUS, and some of them, the words S. PAULUS also. From Leo III to the
Ottonian dynasty, the coins bear the name of the
Holy Roman Emperor as well as that of the pope. After the sixteenth century the coat of arms of the pope alone frequently appears on pontifical coins. There are also found images of the Saviour, or of saints, symbolical figures of men or of animals, the keys (which appear for the first time on the coins of Benevento) etc. From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, Biblical or moral phrases are added, in allusion to the saint or to the symbol that is stamped upon the coin, e.g. MONSTRA TE ESSE MATREM, SPES NOSTRA, SUB TUUM PRÆSIDIUM, TOTA PULCERA, SUPRA FIRMAM PETRAM, DA RECTA SAPERE (during the
Conclave), UBI THESAURUS IBI COR, CRESCENTEM SEQUITUR CURA PECUNIAM, HILAREM DATOREM DILIGIT DEUS, PRO PRETIO ANIMÆ, FERRO NOCENTIUS AURUM, IN SUDORE VULTUS, CONSERVATÆ PEREUNT, TOLLE ET PROIICE, etc. Sometimes allusion is made to an historical event, as the acquisition of
Ferrara, or the
deliverance of Vienna from the Turks(1683), or to some concession of the pope to his subjects, or to a
jubilee year. From the time of Clement X the coins struck at Rome bear a minute representation of the coat of arms of the prelate in charge of the mint, a custom that obtained until 1817. The only instance of a Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church stamping his coat of arms on the coins during the lifetime of the pope is that of Cardinal
Francesco Armellini Pantalassi de' Medici, under Adrian VI, in the case of four grossi. The mints outside of Rome stamped the coins with the arms of their respective cities, or with those of the
cardinal legate, of the
vice-legate, or of the governor; thus,
Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1612 struck coins at Avignon with his own name and arms, omitting the name of the pope, an example that was followed a year later by the
pro-legate Cardinal Filonardi. The city very often placed the image of its patron saint on its coins. The date came to be stamped on coins that were struck during the vacancies of the Holy See, occasionally at first, and later as a rule; it rarely appears on other coins before 1550; the practice became general in the seventeenth century, the year of the Christian era or that of the pontificate being used; and Gregory XVI established it by law, as also the requirement that each coin should bear upon it an expression of its value. At Bologna as early as the seventeenth century, the value of gold or silver coins was usually indicated with the figures 20, 40, 80, etc., i.e. so many bolognini or baiocchi; at Rome, in the eighteenth century, nearly all the copper coins bore an indication of their value. The rim of papal coins rarely bore an inscription; at most, the monogram of the city in which the coin was struck was stamped upon it. From the sixteenth century, the engravers, also, put their
ciphers on the coins; among these engravers may be named
Benvenuto Cellini,
Francesco Francia, the four
Hamerani,
Giulio Romano, Cavaliere Lucenti, Andrea Perpenti etc. Until the time of Pius VI, the dies for the mint remained the property of the engravers.
Monetary system of Papal coinage The Byzantine monetary system is followed in the papal coinage until the reign of Leo III, after which the system of the Frankish Empire obtains. John XXII adopted the Florentine system, and coined gold forms, but the weight of this coin varied from 22 to 30 carats (4.4 to 6 g), until Gregory XI reduced it to the original 24 carats (4.8 g); but deterioration came again, and then there were two kinds of florins, the papal
florin, which maintained the old weight, and the florin di Camera, the two being in the ratio of 69 papal florins = 100 florins di Camera = 1 gold pound = 10 carlini. The ducat was coined in the papal mint from the year 1432; it was a coin of Venetian origin that circulated with the florin, which in 1531 was succeeded by the
scudo, a piece of French origin (écu) that remained the monetary unit of the Pontifical States. At the same time, there appeared the
zecchino. The ancient papal florin was equal to 2 scudi and 11 baiocchi (1 baiocco = 0.01 scudi); one ducat was equal to one scudo and 9 baiocchi. The scudo also underwent fluctuations, in the market and in its weight: the so-called scudo delle stampe (1595) was worth 184·2 baiocchi, that is, a little less than 2 scudi. Benedict XIII re-established the good quality of the alloy, but under Pius VI it again deteriorated. In 1835 Gregory XVI regulated the monetary system of the Pontifical States, establishing the scudo as the unit, and dividing it into 100 baiocchi, while the baiocco was divided into 5 quattrini (the quattrino, until 1591, had been equal to ¼ of a baiocco). The scudo was coined both in gold and in silver; there were pieces of 10 scudi, called Gregorine; and pieces of 5 scudi, and of 2½ scudi were also coined. The scudo of the eighteenth century was equal to l·65 scudi of Pius VII, which last was adopted by Gregory XVI; the zecchino was worth 2·2 scudi. The scudo is equal to 5·3 lire in the monetary system of the Latin Union. The fractional silver coins were the half scudo, and the giulio, called also paolo, which was equal to 0·1 seudi. Julius II created the latter coin to put the carlini of Charles of Anjou out of circulation, those coins being of bad alloy. There were pieces of 2 giulii that were called papetti, at Rome, and lire at Bologna, a name that was later given to them officially. A grosso, introduced in 1736, was equal to half a giulio (25 baiocchi); there were also the mezzogrosso, and the testone = 30 giulii. The copper coins were the baiocco or soldo (which was called bolognino, at Bologna) and the 2 baiocchi piece. The name baiocco is derived from that of the city of Bayeux.
Other coins used in the Pontifical States Other coins that were used at various times in the Pontifical States were the
baiocchella = 1 baiocco, a copper piece with a silver surface, and therefore smaller than the copper baiocco; there were coins made of the two metals of the values, respectively of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 16 baiocchi; the copper
madonnina (Bologna) = 5 baiocchi; the
sampietrino (Pius VI) = 2½ baiocchi; the
paludella was a
soldo, made of an
alloy of copper and silver, established by Pius VI as a more easily portable specie with which to pay the workmen of the
Pontine Marshes; the
sesino = 0·4 of a baiocco = 2 quattrini; the
leonina (Leo XII) = 4·4 Gregorian scudi; the
doblone = 2 old scudi = 3·3 scudi of the nineteenth century; there were dobloni of the relative values of 4, 8, and 16 scudi; the
doppio was worth a little less than the doblone, that is, 3·21 scudi of the nineteenth Century; at Bologna there were also coined scudi of 80 baiocchi, and half-scudi of 40 baiocchi; the
gabella was a Bolognese coin, equivalent to a
carlino or
giulio; the
gabellone was equivalent to 26 bolognini (baiocchi); the
franco, in the fifteenth century, was worth 12 baiocchi at Bologna, but only 10 baiocchi at Rome; the
alberetti was a two-baiocco piece that was coined by the
Roman Republic (1798–99). ==Recent reassessment==