29 Scudi Banco do S. Spirito di Roma

The Banco di Santo Spirito, founded in 1605 under Pope Paul V, is among the oldest chartered banks in Europe. By the late eighteenth century it functioned as the principal deposit and exchange institution of the Papal States, and its printed cedole — of which this is one — circulated among Roman merchants and ecclesiastical administrators as a practical substitute for specie. The odd denomination of 29 Scudi is not a misprint; the bank issued notes in unconventional face values tied to specific deposit transactions rather than round monetary units, a practice that distinguished its paper from more standardized state currencies.

The watermark remains the primary security device, consistent across the series.