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The Banca dello Stato Pontificio was the central bank of the Papal States, and by 1868 it was operating under extraordinary pressure. The French garrison that had protected Rome since 1849 was withdrawn in 1866 under the September Convention, leaving the temporal power of the papacy increasingly exposed. Notes issued in this period circulated within a state that most of Europe had already written off as politically terminal — Rome fell to Italian forces just two years later, in September 1870.

After unification, outstanding Papal State banknotes were not honored by the Italian government. Redemption was left to the dissolved bank's own liquidation process, and most notes were never presented — which is why survivors exist at all.