1 Giulio - Paul IV St. Paul, closed book

Paul IV — born Gian Pietro Carafa — was among the most severe figures to occupy the Chair of Peter in the sixteenth century, the architect of the Roman Ghetto in 1555 and a driving force behind the expansion of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. His pontificate ended in such public contempt that a Roman mob destroyed the headquarters of the Inquisition and toppled his statue the day he died. Coins struck under him carry that charged atmosphere without advertising it.

The closed-book attribute on the reverse distinguishes this from the open-book variant, a difference captured in the Muntoni split at nos. 18–19.