1 Ducat - Sixtus IV

Comtat Venaissin was a papal enclave in Provence, entirely surrounded by French territory yet under direct Holy See administration since 1274 — a jurisdictional anomaly that gave the papacy a foothold in southern France throughout the medieval and early modern period. Sixtus IV, better known for commissioning the Sistine Chapel and for his entanglement in the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478, exercised full temporal authority over the Comtat from Avignon. Gold ducats struck there during his pontificate circulated alongside French and Italian issues but answered to Rome, not Paris.

The Avignon mint had a long tradition of imitating Venetian ducat standards, and the weight specification here is consistent with that practice.