1 Quattrino - Gregorio XVI

Gregorio XVI inherited a Papal States treasury gutted by Napoleonic occupation and never fully recovered it. His reign saw two serious revolts — 1831 and 1845 — both suppressed only with Austrian military intervention, and his government's chronic insolvency meant even small copper issues like this quattrino were struck intermittently across nearly a decade rather than in planned annual runs. The Vatican's reliance on foreign bayonets to hold its temporal territory made the continued minting of civic coinage something of a political performance as much as an economic function.