1 Ducat - Innocent VIII

Innocent VIII's pontificate was defined less by spiritual authority than by the 1486 peace brokered between the Italian states — a fragile arrangement that briefly stabilized the peninsula and kept Papal finances functional enough to sustain gold coinage throughout his reign. He was also the pope who, in 1484, issued Summis desiderantes affectibus, the bull that effectively authorized the witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum two years later.

The Berman 497 attribution places this squarely within the Roman mint's output under his eight-year reign. Surviving examples in any condition are genuinely scarce — Innocent VIII ducats appear at auction far less frequently than those of his successor Alexander VI.