| Descrição do anverso |
Letterpress-printed cedola in black ink on plain paper, with a decorative border of fine typographic ornaments enclosing the text. The institution name S. MONTE DELLA PIETÀ DI ROMA is set in large display type at the centre, beneath the date line QUINDICI GENNARO MILLE SETTECENTO OTTANTOTTO. The denomination DICISSETTE is highlighted in bold letterpress within a guilloche band, flanked by decorative fillers, with handwritten register number and manuscript notations including signatures below; the clause VAGLIA PER TUTTO LO STATO ECCLESIASTICO appears at lower right. |
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| Descrição do reverso |
Plain paper reverse bearing four corner impressions of the denomination numeral 17 within small typographic frames, with various manuscript annotations, handwritten endorsements, and what appears to be a circular dry-stamp or seal impression near the upper centre. A bold manuscript tally mark IIIIIII X is inscribed across the centre, and additional handwritten notations in Italian script are scattered across the surface. |
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The Sacro Monte della Pietà di Roma was one of the oldest pawn-lending institutions in Europe, established in 1539 under papal authority to provide credit to the poor at controlled rates — a direct counter to usurious private lending. By the late eighteenth century it had evolved into a quasi-banking body issuing fedi di credito, transferable credit certificates that functioned as paper currency among Rome's merchant class long before the Papal States had anything resembling a central bank.
The 17 Scudi denomination is characteristically awkward — not a round figure, almost certainly reflecting a specific deposited sum rather than a standardized currency unit. The dry stamp was the institution's primary anti-counterfeiting measure, impressed into the paper at point of issue.