1/2 Quattrino - Innocent VIII

Innocent VIII's pontificate opened with a compromise — he was elected only after a deadlocked conclave agreed on Giovanni Battista Cibò as a candidate acceptable to both the della Rovere and Borgia factions. The small billon fractional coinage issued under his name reflects the chronic underfunding of the papal treasury during these years, when Innocent was simultaneously financing a crusade fund against the Ottomans and paying a pension to keep Cem Sultan — the Ottoman pretender — as a political hostage in Rome.