1 Ducato - Pasquale Cicogna

Pasquale Cicogna served as Doge from 1585 to 1595, a tenure defined largely by Venice's increasingly precarious position between Ottoman naval pressure and the growing commercial dominance of northern European maritime powers. The ducato — distinct from the gold ducat of the same city — was Venice's principal large silver denomination, introduced to compete with the taler-weight coins flooding European trade routes from the Habsburg mints.

Cicogna's decade in office saw the completion of the Rialto Bridge in 1591, funded partly through forced loans levied on the merchant class whose transactions these very coins facilitated.