5 Soldi - Carlo Ludovico I

Carlo Ludovico di Borbone ruled Lucca as a placeholder sovereign — the Congress of Vienna had already decided the duchy would eventually pass to Tuscany, and everyone knew it. That peculiar provisional status shaped his coinage program: issues were modest in ambition and scope, produced at the Lucca mint under arrangements that would be wound down entirely when Tuscany absorbed the duchy in 1847. The billon standard used here, at just .200 fineness, placed these pieces firmly in the fiduciary register rather than anything approaching intrinsic value.