António Manoel de Vilhena, Grand Master from 1722 to 1736, undertook an ambitious building program on Malta that included the fortified city bearing his name — Città Vilhena, now Mdina's outer fortifications. Funding these projects required careful management of the Order's mint, and copper issues like this carlino circulated primarily among the local Maltese population rather than within the Order's own financial networks, which operated on silver and gold.
The carlino denomination had Neapolitan roots, inherited through Malta's broader Mediterranean monetary connections. KM#200 is among the more frequently encountered Vilhena copper types, though survivors with intact surfaces are not.
António Manoel de Vilhena, Grand Master from 1722 to 1736, undertook an ambitious building program on Malta that included the fortified city bearing his name — Città Vilhena, now Mdina's outer fortifications. Funding these projects required careful management of the Order's mint, and copper issues like this carlino circulated primarily among the local Maltese population rather than within the Order's own financial networks, which operated on silver and gold.
The carlino denomination had Neapolitan roots, inherited through Malta's broader Mediterranean monetary connections. KM#200 is among the more frequently encountered Vilhena copper types, though survivors with intact surfaces are not.