Bologna operated under a dual authority during this period — the papal legate governed administratively, but the city's Senate retained the right to strike coinage in its own name, a privilege jealously defended and periodically contested with Rome. Alexander VII's pontificate saw renewed friction over these municipal minting prerogatives, and the quadrupla issues of 1659–1661 fall squarely within that uneasy negotiation.
Berman 1914 distinguishes this type from closely related Bologna gold by the senatorial attribution rather than direct papal emisssion — a distinction that mattered enormously to Bolognese civic identity at the time.
Bologna operated under a dual authority during this period — the papal legate governed administratively, but the city's Senate retained the right to strike coinage in its own name, a privilege jealously defended and periodically contested with Rome. Alexander VII's pontificate saw renewed friction over these municipal minting prerogatives, and the quadrupla issues of 1659–1661 fall squarely within that uneasy negotiation.
Berman 1914 distinguishes this type from closely related Bologna gold by the senatorial attribution rather than direct papal emisssion — a distinction that mattered enormously to Bolognese civic identity at the time.