1 Doppia - Giovanni Battista di Savoia Racconigi Abate

The Abbey of Fruttuaria, founded in 1003 by William of Volpiano near San Benigno Canavese in Piedmont, held the unusual privilege of striking its own coinage — a right derived from imperial grants that placed it among a small number of ecclesiastical institutions in northern Italy with genuine monetary authority. Giovanni Battista di Savoia, its abbot during this period, belonged to the House of Savoy, and his appointment was transparently political: the Duchy used abbatial positions to extend family influence over strategically located religious institutions.

The CNI records only two to three specimens of this type. Its extreme rarity almost certainly reflects limited production rather than attrition — the abbey's minting activity was intermittent and already in institutional decline by the 1580s.