80 Scudi

The Monte di Pietà in Rome was one of the oldest pawnbroking institutions in Europe, founded in the fifteenth century under papal patronage to provide credit to the poor at controlled rates — a direct counter to usury. By the late eighteenth century it had evolved into something closer to a deposit and lending bank, and its fedi di credito, of which this is one, functioned as transferable credit instruments rather than currency in the modern sense. Ownership changed by written endorsement on the reverse, not by simple hand-to-hand exchange.

1797 is a charged date: French forces under Bonaparte were consolidating control across northern Italy, and the Papal States were under severe financial pressure following the Treaty of Tolentino, which stripped Rome of territory and an enormous indemnity. Notes from this institution in this year reflect that fiscal strain directly.