Comment on 17.7.1808

50 scudi was quite a large amount of money. By way of comparison, Thorvaldsen paid 30 scudi the same year for 6 months’ rent in the Palazzo Tomati, cf. rent receipts from 8.2.1806-17.12.1809.

Scudi is the plural form of the Italian monetary unit scudo. Scudo means ‘shield’ in Italian, and the coin was called like that because the authority that had struck the coin often put its escutcheon on it. See the related article on Monetary Units for more about this.

Last updated 31.10.2017