1 Scudo d'Oro - Paul III

Paul III — Alessandro Farnese before his election in 1534 — had spent decades navigating the political machinery of the papacy before finally securing the throne at sixty-seven. His early pontificate was consumed by the fallout from Henry VIII's break with Rome and the ongoing fracture of Lutheranism across northern Europe. Bologna, briefly restored to direct papal control following the 1530 coronation of Charles V there by Clement VII, was a politically loaded mint city; coinage struck there carried an implicit assertion of temporal authority that Rome's own output did not require.

The MIR 903/3 designation distinguishes this emission from closely related Bologna scudi of the same pontificate by subtle die characteristics that collectors frequently conflate.