Historical Sketch
The Papal States were founded in 754 by a gift of land from the Frankish king Pepin to Pope Stephen II in the Treaty of Quierzy-Laon (known as Pepin's Donation). In the Middle Ages, it extended across northern and central Italy, including some territories in southern France. Revolutionary France conquered the Papal possessions outside Italy in 1791, and in 1797, the Legations of Emilia-Romagna were occupied and subsequently annexed to the (Napoleonic) Kingdom of Italy. The remaining part of the Papal States in Latium were occupied in 1799 but returned to Papacy two years later, just to be re-occupied in 1808. The annexation to France was done in the following year, and Napoleon's son obtained the nominal title of King of Rome. The 1815 Vienna Congress restored the Papal States on the Italian Peninsula. In 1859, the Italian revolutionary movement occupied the Emilia-Romagna, to be annexed to Sardinia in the same year. When the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861, Latium and the City of Rome were still under Papal sovereignty. In September 1870 finally, when the French protection of the Papal States was withdrawn after the outbreak of the French-Prussian War, the last bit of the Papal States was occupied and absorbed into Italy. The Pope lost his temporal power but remained bishop of Rome.
Monetary History Overview
Papal accounting was done in the
Roman Scudo
(Thaler) which had replaced another silver coin in 1753. Additional gold coins, the Ducat and the Doppia (Pistol), had no fixed ratio to the Scudo and were traded as bullion. During French annexation, the Emilia region was incorporated into the Napoleonic Kingdom and adopted its currency, while in the Latium region with the city of Rome French coins were circulating alongside the Papal ones. The weight of the Scudo was reduced by about 1% in 1818, and in 1835 the currency switched to bimetallism with a gold-to-silver ratio slightly above 15½. In 1866, after the Papal States had been reduced to Latium with the city of Rome only, the Papal currency was reformed. The
Roman Lira
was a bimetallic currency in the French standard and therefore identical to the Italian Lira. In 1870 finally, Italy conquered Latium and the Pope lost his territorial rule. The Papal gold and silver coins were tolerated in payment transactions until 1885.
In 1859, Emilia was annexed by Sardinia in the course of Italian unification. The Sardinian Lira was adopted as currency in November of the same year. Subsequently, the Bologna mint issued distinct coins depicting the Savoy ruler as "Italian king elect", in anticipation of the foundation of the Kingdom of Italy one year later.