1 Testone - Innocent XI MELIVS EST DARE QVAM ACCIPERE

Innocent XI was elected in 1676 under considerable pressure from the French faction, then spent much of his pontificate in open conflict with Louis XIV over the Gallican Articles of 1682, which asserted the French crown's authority over the Roman church. The papal treasury was simultaneously strained by his financial support for the Holy League campaign against the Ottomans — culminating in the relief of Vienna in 1683 — making the motto on this testone, "It is better to give than to receive," a quietly pointed theological statement from a pope who gave a great deal and received very little diplomatic gratitude for it.

Innocent XI was beatified in 1956, one of very few popes whose coinage predates their beatification by nearly three centuries.