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The Governo Provvisorio di Venezia — the short-lived revolutionary republic that expelled Austrian rule in March 1848 under Daniele Manin — issued this note during its seventeen-month siege. Cut off from mainland trade and starved of metallic currency, the provisional government improvised a paper money system to keep the city functioning. These small-denomination notes were printed locally in Venice itself, under siege conditions, which accounts for the notoriously rough production quality seen across the S186 series.

Austria retook Venice in August 1849 after a devastating bombardment and a cholera outbreak that killed thousands. The new paper was immediately demonetized, and most of it was destroyed or discarded — survival rates for low-denomination examples are particularly poor.