2 Baiocchi

The Roman Republic of 1798 was a French-backed revolutionary state that displaced Papal authority following Napoleon's Italian campaigns and the capture of Pope Pius VI. It survived less than eighteen months before Neapolitan and then French imperial politics extinguished it entirely. The new government needed coinage that repudiated the old theocratic order, and copper issues like this circulated in a city still adjusting to the sudden absence of pontifical administration.

The MIR reference spans multiple die pairings across this type, and Muntoni's numbering distinguishes minor obverse variations that affect collector value more than historical significance.