1 Grosso - Pius VII PAVPERI PORRIGE MANVM

Pius VII issued this grosso in the immediate aftermath of Napoleon's final defeat, having himself spent five years as a French prisoner — first in Savona, then Fontainebleau — after refusing to subordinate the Church to imperial authority. The restoration of papal temporal power over Rome and the Papal States in 1814 made coinage reform both a practical and political necessity. This small silver piece was among the first issues to reestablish the pope's role as sovereign minter.

The PAVPERI PORRIGE MANVM ("Stretch out your hand to the poor") inscription had deep roots in papal charitable tradition, though its appearance here carried fresh resonance in a Rome economically devastated by two decades of French occupation and extraction.