1/2 Scudo - Biennial Doges

The "Biennial Doges" designation marks a constitutional reform forced on Genoa in 1528 by Andrea Doria, who restructured the republic's government to rotate the dogeship every two years — deliberately preventing any single family from entrenching power as the Adorni and Fregosi had done through the previous century of factional violence. The coinage issued under this new arrangement reflects that instability resolved: no individual doge's name appears on the type, an intentional erasure of personal authority.

The thirteen-year window for this issue brackets Genoa's formal alignment with Habsburg Spain, a pivot that funded much of the city's subsequent banking dominance in imperial finance.