1 Quattrino - Leo X Roma

Leo X — born Giovanni de' Medici — was elected pope in March 1513 and famously remarked to his brother that God had given them the papacy, so they might as well enjoy it. His reign was defined by extravagant expenditure on art and architecture, much of it financed through the sale of indulgences that directly provoked Luther's 95 Theses in 1517. The quattrino, the lowest denomination in the papal monetary hierarchy, would have been the coin most Romans actually handled daily while that crisis quietly metastasized.