6 Lire - Ferdinando di Borbone

Ferdinando di Borbone ruled Parma as a largely ineffectual duke under heavy Austrian influence, but the final years of his reign were overtaken by events entirely beyond his control. French Revolutionary armies crossed into northern Italy in 1796, and Napoleon's Italian campaign rendered most of the small Po Valley duchies politically obsolete almost overnight. Ferdinando died in October 1802 before formal annexation, but Parma had been effectively a French satellite for years by then. This issue, struck in the last window before that collapse, had a circulation life measured in months rather than years.