1/2 Soldo

The half soldo copper issues of the early seventeenth century Venetian Republic served the lowest tier of daily commerce in a city whose trade networks still stretched across the eastern Mediterranean, despite mounting Ottoman pressure on its colonial holdings. By 1619, Venice was barely a decade removed from the War of the Uskok, a grinding Adriatic conflict that had strained the treasury and disrupted Adriatic shipping lanes.

KM#77 is associated with the dogeship of Giovanni Bembo, elected 1615. Copper small change from this period circulated hard and was rarely preserved — decent survivors are genuinely scarce.