1 Picciolo - Pius II CAPVT MVNDI

Enea Silvio Piccolomini took the papal throne in 1458 having already built one of the most distinguished humanist careers of the fifteenth century — diplomat, poet, geographer, and author of an autobiography unusual enough to embarrass later Church authorities into suppressing it. His pontificate was consumed almost entirely by the failed crusade project: Pius II spent his final years trying to rally European princes against the Ottomans following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, dying at Ancona in 1464 while literally waiting for a fleet that never fully materialized. The picciolo was the smallest unit of papal account coinage, billon debased enough that even contemporary users considered it marginal currency.