1 Lira - Leopold II

Leopold II's Milan lira belongs to one of the most compressed reigns in Habsburg history. He became Holy Roman Emperor in September 1790 following the sudden death of his brother Joseph II, inherited a Milanese duchy in open revolt against Josephine reforms, and was dead himself by March 1792 — leaving barely eighteen months in which Milanese dies bearing his name were ever cut.

Joseph's aggressive centralization policies had driven Milan to the brink of insurrection by 1789, and Leopold's first act was effectively to reverse them. The coinage resumed under a new emperor but an old political logic.