1/2 Bolognino - Clement XI

Clement XI spent much of his pontificate navigating the fallout from the War of the Spanish Succession, during which Bologna — technically a papal city — found itself economically pressured by competing French and Habsburg interests. Small copper issues like this half bolognino were workhorses of local commerce, struck at the Bologna mint under its own administration with only nominal Roman oversight. The Bologna mint maintained a degree of operational autonomy unusual among papal satellite mints, which accounts for the range of die varieties documented by Chimienti across this five-year window.