2 Soldi

Genoa's billon coinage of this period was issued under the Doge and Governors of the Republic, an oligarchic structure that had governed the city continuously since the medieval period. By the early eighteenth century, Genoa's commercial dominance had long been eclipsed by Amsterdam and London, but the Republic maintained its mint with remarkable institutional stubbornness. The 1746 Austrian bombardment of the city — and the subsequent popular uprising that expelled the occupiers — falls just outside this type's production window, a reminder of how precarious the Republic's independence had become.