2 Doppie - Ferdinand Charles III

Ferdinand Charles III ruled Mantua under direct Habsburg pressure for the entirety of this issue's production span, a period that ended catastrophically when he sided with France during the War of Spanish Succession. The decision cost him everything — Emperor Joseph I declared him a rebel in 1708, confiscated his territories, and extinguished the Gonzaga line's rule over Mantua permanently. This coin was struck within a duchy already in steep economic and political decline, its autonomy increasingly nominal.

Fr#591 places this among the documented Frenchified gold issues of the late Italian Gonzaga succession, a series complicated by interrupted production and court instability throughout the 1690s.