10 Scudi - Francisco Ximenez de Texada

Francisco Ximenes de Texada, elected Grand Master in 1773, oversaw the Order at a moment of acute institutional anxiety — the suppression of the Jesuits that same year by Clement XIV had sent shockwaves through Catholic Europe, and many within the Hospitallers feared a similar papal action against their own sovereignty over Malta. Gold coinage issued under Ximenes carried particular political weight, as the Order's right to strike independent currency was one of the few remaining markers of its quasi-sovereign status in an age when European powers were increasingly skeptical of its military relevance.

Fr#39 is scarce in any grade; surviving examples turn up almost exclusively in old European cabinet collections.