1 Quattrino - Filippo IV Coat of arms

Filippo IV — Philip IV of Spain — never set foot in Milan, yet governed it as Duke for over four decades through a succession of appointed governors. The duchy was by this point a strategic military corridor rather than an economic prize, and small copper coinage like this quattrino bore the cost of that neglect: chronic underfunding of the Milan mint meant production runs were irregular, dies were reused well past their useful life, and fabric quality varied considerably across the long emission period catalogued under MIR MI#376.