1 Scudo - Manuel Pinto de Fonseca

Manuel Pinto de Fonseca served as Grand Master of the Order from 1741 to 1773, one of the longest tenures in the Order's modern history. This scudo was struck in the first year of his rule, when the Order's mint at Valletta was still producing coinage with reasonable regularity — a situation that would become increasingly strained as the century wore on and the Order's revenues from corsairing declined.

The Knights had held Malta since 1530, but by the mid-eighteenth century their political position in Europe was more ceremonial than military. Pinto de Fonseca was Portuguese by birth, one of the few Grand Masters drawn from outside the French and Italian nobility.