5 Centesimi - Francis Joseph I

Lombardy-Venetia was not a willing participant in the Habsburg monetary system. The 1848–49 revolutions had left Milan and Venice briefly independent before Austrian forces reconsolidated control, and this 1852 copper issue belongs to the first coinage series struck after that suppression — a fiscal reassertion as much as anything else. The series replaced the earlier Milanese and Venetian coinages that had circulated under Napoleon and the provisional revolutionary governments.

The Milan mint struck these under tight imperial oversight following the appointment of Field Marshal Radetzky as Governor-General after the revolt's defeat.