1/4 Scudo - Filippo Spinola

Arquata del Bosco was a tiny imperial fief in the Ligurian Apennines, and the Spinola family's right to strike coin there derived from a grant of the Holy Roman Empire — one of dozens of such minting privileges scattered across fragmented northern Italy. Filippo Spinola exercised that right aggressively in the 1640s, producing fractional silver at a moment when Spanish military expenditure in the region was consuming coinage faster than established mints could supply it. The CNI records only a single obverse die pairing for this quarter scudo, suggesting extremely limited output.