36 Scudi

The Sacro Monte della Pietà di Roma was not a state bank but a pawnbroking institution — a Monte di Pietà — originally established in the sixteenth century to provide low-interest loans to the poor as an alternative to usurers. By the late eighteenth century it had evolved into one of the principal credit institutions of the Papal States, issuing cedole that circulated as de facto currency in Rome and its surroundings.

The 36 scudi denomination is among the more unusual in the series — not a round figure, suggesting it was calibrated to a specific loan or redemption value rather than general convenience. Papal monetary policy of this period was notoriously fragmented, with multiple overlapping credit institutions issuing their own paper, which the French occupation of 1798 would subsequently sweep away entirely.