Catalog
150 Scudi
| Issuer | Sacro Monte della Pietà di Roma |
|---|---|
| Year | 1790 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Scudo (1534-1835) |
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| Obverse description | Typeset letterpress note in black ink on plain paper, framed by a decorative typographic border. The institution name S. MONTE DELLA PIETÀ DI ROMA is set in large display type across the centre, above the value statement in italic and roman lettering. The denomination Centocinquanta appears in a bold cartouche flanked by ornamental typeset fillers, with manuscript annotations including register number, serial number, date, and signatures filling the lower portion. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain paper reverse showing bleed-through of the obverse typeset text and manuscript annotations, with the denomination 150 repeated in bold typeset blocks at each corner within small ornamental frames. Several lines of manuscript handwriting in Italian appear across the surface, recording subsequent endorsements or transfers. |
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| Comments |
The Sacro Monte della Pietà di Roma was one of the oldest institutional pawnbrokers in Europe, founded in 1539 to provide low-interest loans to the poor as an explicit counterweight to moneylending. By the late eighteenth century it had evolved into a quasi-banking institution operating under papal authority, issuing cedole — bearer certificates functioning as paper money — backed by deposits of pledged goods and precious metals held in its Roman vaults.
The 150 Scudi denomination sits at the upper end of the cedole range, suggesting use in merchant and institutional transactions rather than everyday commerce. Papal financial instruments of this period were deeply shaken by the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s, and large-denomination notes from just before that disruption survive in genuinely limited numbers.