1 Quattrino - Benedict XIV RAVENNAE

Benedict XIV — Prospero Lambertini — governed the Papal States with unusual administrative pragmatism, reducing tax burdens and attempting to rationalize the chronically disordered papal coinage system. The Ravenna mint was one of several provincial operations he permitted to continue striking copper, though its output was modest and tightly supervised compared to Rome. Lambertini's correspondence with Voltaire and his reputation among Enlightenment figures as the most intellectually serious pope of the century sits in odd contrast to the humble fiscal reality these quattrini represent.