1 Doppia – Bozzolo

In 1620, the Duchy of Mantua, which included the small but prosperous town of Bozzolo, was navigating a complex and fragmented monetary landscape. The region did not have a single, unified currency but operated within a multi-layered system. The official currency of the Mantuan state was the lira, soldo, and denaro system (£, s, d), but this was largely a unit of account used for bookkeeping, contracts, and setting prices. In daily circulation, a plethora of physical coins from various Italian and European states changed hands, most notably the silver scudo from Savoy and the gold zecchino or sequin from Venice, alongside Spanish silver reales entering via Lombardy's trade networks.

This proliferation of foreign coinage, each with fluctuating metallic content and exchange rates, created significant challenges for merchants and officials in Bozzolo. The value of coins was intrinsically tied to their precious metal weight and fineness, leading to constant evaluation, clipping, and counterfeiting concerns. The local authorities, under the rule of Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga, were tasked with periodically issuing tariffe (official exchange rate bulletins) to fix the value of these circulating foreign coins against the Mantuan lira of account. This was crucial for maintaining public order in markets and ensuring the Duke could collect his taxes and tolls effectively.

Furthermore, the monetary situation was strained by the broader geopolitical tensions of the time. Mantua was on the precarious edge of the Thirty Years' War, and Duke Ferdinando's expensive court and military expenditures placed a heavy burden on the treasury. This often led to deliberate currency manipulations, such as the debasement of locally minted coinage (like the sesino), where the silver content was reduced to create short-term profit for the state. For the people of Bozzolo, this meant price inflation, uncertainty in savings, and a constant struggle to ascertain the true worth of the coins in their purses, embedding a layer of economic anxiety into daily life just years before the devastating War of the Mantuan Succession would engulf the region.