The Papal Mint is the pope's institute for the production of hard cash. Papal Mint also refers to the buildings in Avignon, Rome, and elsewhere that used to house the mint.
History of Papal coin Coins survive from the tenures of Pope Zacharias (741-752), of Gregory III (731-741) (Ficoroni, "Museo Kircheriano"), and possibly of Gregory II (715-731). These pieces, two of which are of silver, are believed to be true coins, and not medals like those distributed as "presbyterium" at the coronation of the popes since the time of Valentine (827). Their stamp resembles the Byzantine and Merovingian coins of the seventh and eighth centuries, and their square shape is also found in Byzantine pieces. Those that bear the inscription GREII PAPE — SCI PTR (Gregorii Papæ — Sancti Petri) cannot be attributed to Pope Gregory IV (827-44), because of the peculiarity of minting. The existence of these coins, while the popes yet recognized the Byzantine domination, is explained by Ludo Moritz Hartmann, who believes that, in the eighth century, the popes received from the emperors the attributes of "Præfectus Urbis".Das Königreich Italien, Vol. III Under the empire, coins that were struck in the provinces bore the name of some local magistrate; Hartmann argues that the coins of Gregory and of Zacharias are simply imperial Byzantine pieces, bearing the name of the first civil magistrate of the City of Rome.
There are no coins of pope Stephen III or of pope Paul I, who reigned when the Duchy of Rome was already independent of the Eastern Empire; the first true papal coins are those of Adrian I, from whose time until the reign of pope John XIV (984) the popes coined money at Rome.
There is no pontifical money of a date between 984 and 1305; this is explained, in part, by the fact that the Senate of Rome, which sought to replace the papacy in the temporal government of the city, took over the mint in 1143. On the other hand, Prince Alberic had already coined money in his own name. The coins of the Senate of Rome usually bear the inscription "ROMA CAPUT MUNDI", or, S. P. Q. R., or both, with or without emblems. In 1188 the mint was restored to pope Clement III, with the agreement that half of its profits should be assigned to the sindaco, or mayor. The Senate, meanwhile, continued to coin money, and there is no reference on the coins of that time to the papal authority. In the thirteenth century the Sindaco caused his own name to be stamped upon the coins, and, consequently, coins survive with the names of Brancaleone, of Charles I of Anjou, of Francesco Anguillara, viceroy of Robert of Naples, etc.; so did King Ladislao. Cola di Rienzi, during his brief tribunate, likewise struck coins, with the inscription: N. TRIBUN. AUGUST.: ROMA CAPU. MU.
Papal coins reappeared with the removal of the pontifical Court to Avignon, although there exists a single coin that is referred to Benedict XI (1303-4), with the legend COITAT. VENASIN; as, however, this pope never resided in Venaissin, which had belonged to the Holy See since 1274, the coin should be referred to Benedict XII. There are coins of all the popes from John XXII to Pius IX.
History of the Papal mint The popes, and also the Senate when it coined money, appear to have used the imperial mint of Rome, which was on the slope of the Campidoglio, not far from the Arch of Septimius Severus; but in the fifteenth century the mint was near the bank of Santo Spirito. Finally, in 1665, Alexander VII moved it to the rear of the apse of St. Peter's. Bernini invented for it a machine to do the work more rapidly, and Francesco Girardini furnished a very sensitive balance; so that the mint of Rome was technically the most perfect one of those times. In 1845 Pius IX equipped it with the most modern appliances.
The administration of the mint was at first entrusted to the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church; direct supervision, however, was exercised by the senate, from the time at least when that body took possession of the mint, until the reign of Pope Martin V. The sindaco and the conservators of the Camera Capitolina appointed the masters of the mint, while the minting was witnessed by the heads of the guild of goldsmiths and silversmiths. In 1322 John XXII created the office of treasurer for the mint of Avignon, and its incumbent, little by little, made himself independent of the Camerlengo. Later, the office of prelate president of the mint was created. According to Lunadori (Relaz. della Corte di Roma, 1646), the establishments for the coining of money were in charge of a congregation of Cardinals.
The Papal States joined the Latin Monetary Union in 1866.
Since Italian unification With the unification of Italy and the altered status of Rome, the Italian government took over the operation of the Papal mint in September 1870. The mint was used to make Italian coins, and due to the presence of Italian soldiers guarding the mint, a tunnel was constructed beneath the Apostolic Palace to ensure private access to the Vatican gardens.Pollard, 2005, p. 87.
The Italian government announced in 1901 that it was moving its minting operations to a larger facility. Pope Leo XIII, concerned that an anti-papal organization would take up residence in the building, privately arranged to buy it from the Giolitti government via Ernesto Pacelli in 1904.
Vatican City was established as a separate state in 1929. The Italian mint makes coins for the micro-state, which issues its own euros.
The various Papal mints Rome was not the only city of the Pontifical States that had a mint: prior to the year 1000, there existed at Ravenna the former imperial mint, which was ceded in 996 to Archbishop Gerberto by Gregory V; there were mints also at Spoleto and at Benevento, former residences of Lombard dukes. The Archbishop of Ravenna, who was a feudatory of the emperor rather than of the pope, coined money as long as his temporal power over that city and its territory lasted. The mint of the Emperor Henry VI was established at Bologna in 1194, and nearly all of the coins struck there bear the motto BONONIA DOCET, or BONONIA MATER STUDIORUM. The baiocchi of Bologna were called bolognini; the gold bolognino was equivalent to a gold sequin. The lira, also a Bolognese coin, was worth 20 bolognini. These coins were struck in the name of the commune; it is only from the time when Bologna was recovered by the Holy See, under Clement VI, that Bolognese coins may be regarded as papal.
Papal mints granted by status or privilege Other cities had mints because they were the capitals of principalities subject to the Holy See, or in virtue of a privilege granted them by some prince; and when these feudal states fell to the Holy See, they retained the mints as papal establishments. This was so in the case of Camerino (from Leo X to Paul III), Urbino, Pesaro and Gubbio (under Julius II, Leo X and Clement XI), Ferrara (from Clement VIII), Parma and Piacenza (from Julius II to Paul III).
Papal mints of limited time periods There were other cities or regions to which the popes granted a mint for limited periods of time, as Ancona (from Sixtus IV to Pius VI), Aquila (1486, when that city rebelled against king Ferdinand I of Naples and gave its allegiance to Innocent VIII; its coins, which are very rare, bear the inscription AQUILANA LIBERTAS), Ascoli (from Martin V to Pius VI), Avignon (from Clement V on), Carpentras (under Clement VIII), Venaissin (near Avignon; from Boniface VIII), Fabriano (under Leo X), Fano (from Innocent VIII to Clement VIII), Fermo (from Boniface IX, 1390, to Leo X), the Marches (around Ancona; from Boniface IX to Gregory XIII), Macerata (from Boniface IX to Gregory XIV), Modena (under Leo X and Clement VII), Montalto (under Sixtus V), Orvieto (under Julius II), the "Patrimony" (from Benedict XI to Benedict XII), Perugia (from Julius II to Julius III), Ravenna (from Leo X to Paul III and under Benedict XIV), Recanati (under Nicholas V), Reggio (from Julius II to Adrian VI), Spoleto city (under Paul II), the Duchy of Spoleto, PROVINCIÆ DUCATUS (under Paul V), Viterbo (under Urban VI and Sixtus IV).
The Papal coins Pope Pius VI, being obliged to coin a great deal of copper money, gave the minting of it to a great many cities of the Patrimony of Peter, of Umbria and of the Marches, which, together with those already named, continued to strike these coins; among them were Civitavecchia, Gubbio, Matelica, Ronciglione (the coins of 1799 showing the burning of this city are famous), Terni and Tivoli. Pius VII suppressed all the mints except those of Rome and of Bologna.
As far back as 1370 there were coins struck during the vacancies of the Holy See, by authority of the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, who, after the fifteenth century at least, had his name and his coat of arms be stamped on the reverse of the coin, the obverse bearing the words "SEDE VACANTE" and the date, surrounding the crossed keys surmounted by the pavilion.
Marks on the Papal coins All papal coins, with rare exceptions, bear the name of the pope, preceded (until the time of Paul II) by a Greek cross, and nearly all of the more ancient ones bear, either on the obverse or on the reverse, the words S. PETRUS, and some of them, the words S. PAULUS also. From Leo III to the Ottonian dynasty, the coins bear the name of the Holy Roman Emperor as well as that of the pope. After the sixteenth century the coat of arms of the pope alone frequently appears on pontifical coins. There are also found images of the Saviour, or of saints, symbolical figures of men or of animals, the keys (which appear for the first time on the coins of Benevento) etc. From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, Biblical or moral phrases are added, in allusion to the saint or to the symbol that is stamped upon the coin, e.g. MONSTRA TE ESSE MATREM, SPES NOSTRA, SUB TUUM PRÆSIDIUM, TOTA PULCERA, SUPRA FIRMAM PETRAM, DA RECTA SAPERE (during the Conclave), UBI THESAURUS IBI COR, CRESCENTEM SEQUITUR CURA PECUNIAM, HILAREM DATOREM DILIGIT DEUS, PRO PRETIO ANIMÆ, FERRO NOCENTIUS AURUM, IN SUDORE VULTUS, CONSERVATÆ PEREUNT, TOLLE ET PROIICE, etc. Sometimes allusion is made to an historical event, as the acquisition of Ferrara, or the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks(1683), or to some concession of the pope to his subjects, or to a jubilee year. From the time of Clement X the coins struck at Rome bear a minute representation of the coat of arms of the prelate in charge of the mint, a custom that obtained until 1817. The only instance of a Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church stamping his coat of arms on the coins during the lifetime of the pope is that of Cardinal Francesco Armellini Pantalassi de' Medici, under Adrian VI, in the case of four grossi.