1 Teston - Ranuccio II Saint Vitalis

Ranuccio II ruled Parma for nearly half a century under the suffocating financial dominance of Spain, to whom the Farnese duchy owed both political survival and crippling debt. His coinage output was substantial but erratic, reflecting a treasury perpetually strained by obligations to Madrid and the costs of maintaining a court determined to project ducal grandeur it could barely afford. The teston denomination itself was by this period something of an anachronism in northern Italian commerce, persisting in Parma largely through inertia and ducal prestige.

Saint Vitalis, the martyred Roman soldier venerated as patron of Ravenna, appears here through Farnese ecclesiastical politics rather than any deep local devotion.