2 1/2 Baiocchi - Pius VI

Perugia struck these copper pieces under emergency authorization during the French Revolutionary Wars, as papal finances collapsed under the strain of Napoleon's Italian campaign. The Treaty of Tolentino in February 1797 stripped Pius VI of the Legations and extracted an indemnity of 30 million livres — the monetary chaos that preceded and followed that agreement is precisely why provincial mints like Perugia were issuing fractional coppers at all.

Pius VI died a French prisoner in Valence in 1799, making this one of the final coinages of a pontificate that ended in captivity.