1 Filippo - Carlo II

Carlo II was six years old when this coin was struck. As the last Spanish Habsburg king of Milan, he ruled — or rather, his regents ruled — under the perpetual shadow of succession crisis; his father Felipe IV had died the previous year leaving an empire to a sickly child. The Duchy of Milan was among the most economically strategic territories in the Spanish system, and maintaining a credible silver currency there was a deliberate act of administrative continuity during the regency.

The Filippo denomination itself was named for Felipe II, established in the sixteenth century as Milan's principal large silver trade coin and maintained through successive Habsburg reigns largely unchanged in weight standard.