1 Testone - Innocent XI MELIVS EST DARE QVAM ACCIPERE

Innocent XI is better remembered as a fiscal reformer than a patron of the arts — he slashed Vatican expenditures, banned nepotism among the clergy, and redirected papal finances toward the defense of Catholic Europe against Ottoman expansion. The motto on this testone, drawn from Acts 20:35, was not decorative piety; it was a deliberate public statement from a pope who actually practiced it, having personally funded significant contributions to the Holy League that would relieve Vienna in 1683, just one year before this coin was struck.