1 Quattrino - Leo X S. Peter

Leo X — born Giovanni de' Medici — was elected pope in March 1513 and almost immediately set about financing the completion of St. Peter's Basilica through the aggressive sale of indulgences. It was precisely that fundraising campaign, operating heavily in German territories, that provoked Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. The small billon issues of his reign circulated through a Papal States already straining under the financial pressure of that construction program.

Billon coinage of this period was notoriously debased across Italian states, and Leo's issues are no exception by the standards of the type.