Quadruple Gold Ecu - Urban VIII Anthony Barberini Legate, Mazarin Vice-Legate

Urban VIII appointed his nephew Antonio Barberini as Legate of Avignon in 1633, a cynical piece of nepotism that placed one of the most powerful ecclesiastical territories in France under direct family control. Mazarin served simultaneously as Vice-Legate — this was before his French career, when he was still navigating papal politics and had not yet reinvented himself as Cardinal Mazarin, the architect of French statecraft. The dual authority named on this issue reflects an administrative arrangement that was constitutionally awkward even by the standards of the Comtat.