1 Ducato - Roman Senate

The Roman Senate's ducato issues of this period were produced in deliberate imitation of the Venetian ducat — then the dominant gold trade coin of the Mediterranean — as part of the Senate's ongoing effort to assert civil authority over Rome independently of both the papacy and foreign powers. The Senate had reclaimed direct administrative control of the city in the mid-fourteenth century, and coinage was an explicit instrument of that claim. These pieces circulated alongside pontifical issues in an uneasy monetary coexistence that reflected the broader political fragmentation of the Italian peninsula.