Enea Silvio Piccolomini — scholar, poet, diplomat, and author of one of the Renaissance's more scandalous prose romances — became Pius II in 1458 and almost immediately declared a crusade against the Ottomans following the fall of Constantinople five years earlier. Bologna's mint struck this ducato under papal authority during that pontificate, a period when the city's relationship with Rome was managed through a papal legate rather than direct rule, making these issues administratively distinct from Roman mint production.
Pius died at Ancona in 1464, still waiting for crusade fleets that never fully materialized.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini — scholar, poet, diplomat, and author of one of the Renaissance's more scandalous prose romances — became Pius II in 1458 and almost immediately declared a crusade against the Ottomans following the fall of Constantinople five years earlier. Bologna's mint struck this ducato under papal authority during that pontificate, a period when the city's relationship with Rome was managed through a papal legate rather than direct rule, making these issues administratively distinct from Roman mint production.
Pius died at Ancona in 1464, still waiting for crusade fleets that never fully materialized.