17 Scudi

The Sacro Monte della Pietà di Roma was one of the oldest pawn-lending institutions in Europe, established in 1539 under papal authority to provide credit to the poor at controlled rates — a direct counter to usurious private lending. By the late eighteenth century it had evolved into a quasi-banking body issuing fedi di credito, transferable credit certificates that functioned as paper currency among Rome's merchant class long before the Papal States had anything resembling a central bank.

The 17 Scudi denomination is characteristically awkward — not a round figure, almost certainly reflecting a specific deposited sum rather than a standardized currency unit. The dry stamp was the institution's primary anti-counterfeiting measure, impressed into the paper at point of issue.