1 Testone - Urban VIII Radiant Madonna - Arms

Urban VIII — born Maffeo Barberini — was elected pope in 1623 and proved one of the most politically entangled pontiffs of the seventeenth century, backing France against Spain in the Thirty Years' War and triggering the ruinous Castro War of 1641–1644 through a territorial dispute with the Farnese. These testonì were struck directly within that conflict period, when papal finances were under acute strain and Barberini nepotism had become a scandal across Catholic Europe.

The Berman range 1726–1728 reflects documented die variants across the two-year emission, catalogued primarily by reverse arm configurations.