20 Lire

The Provisional Government of Lombardy issued this coin during the Cinque Giornate — the five days of street fighting in March 1848 that drove Austrian forces out of Milan. The provisional authority needed hard currency immediately to fund military operations and assert sovereign credibility, and gold coinage accomplished both. Production was brief; Austrian troops under Radetzky retook Milan by August, collapsing the government entirely.

Surviving examples are genuinely scarce. The mint operated under extraordinary pressure for only a matter of months.