Urbano V — Guillaume de Grimoard, a Benedictine monk elected pope in 1362 — issued this bolognino during the protracted struggle to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome. He actually made that return in 1367, the first pope to do so in over sixty years, only to be forced back to Avignon in 1370 under pressure from the French cardinals and the outbreak of renewed Italian factional violence. He died in Avignon three months later. The bolognino romano denomination itself was a deliberate assertion of Roman monetary authority during a period when that authority was deeply contested.
Urbano V — Guillaume de Grimoard, a Benedictine monk elected pope in 1362 — issued this bolognino during the protracted struggle to return the papacy from Avignon to Rome. He actually made that return in 1367, the first pope to do so in over sixty years, only to be forced back to Avignon in 1370 under pressure from the French cardinals and the outbreak of renewed Italian factional violence. He died in Avignon three months later. The bolognino romano denomination itself was a deliberate assertion of Roman monetary authority during a period when that authority was deeply contested.