1 Scudo

Ragusa — modern Dubrovnik — maintained its independence for centuries through a combination of careful diplomacy and strategic tribute payments to both the Ottoman Empire and, at various points, the Habsburg crown. The Scudo issues of this period funded exactly that balancing act: a city-state of roughly 30,000 people keeping larger powers at bay through money rather than military force.

The Republic fell not to war but to Napoleon, who dissolved it by decree in 1808.