Pietro Grimani served as Doge from 1741 to 1752, but the ducatone bearing his name was struck only in the opening years of his dogeship. By the mid-eighteenth century the Republic of Venice was a state in managed decline — its commercial empire largely lost to Dutch and English competition, its mainland territories squeezed between Habsburg and Bourbon ambitions. The ducatone itself was by then an anachronism, a prestige silver denomination minted more for ceremonial and diplomatic exchange than for any practical commercial function.
Davenport EC III:1545 places this squarely within the late Venetian series, where die quality had grown inconsistent and full planchet strikes are genuinely difficult to find.
Pietro Grimani served as Doge from 1741 to 1752, but the ducatone bearing his name was struck only in the opening years of his dogeship. By the mid-eighteenth century the Republic of Venice was a state in managed decline — its commercial empire largely lost to Dutch and English competition, its mainland territories squeezed between Habsburg and Bourbon ambitions. The ducatone itself was by then an anachronism, a prestige silver denomination minted more for ceremonial and diplomatic exchange than for any practical commercial function.
Davenport EC III:1545 places this squarely within the late Venetian series, where die quality had grown inconsistent and full planchet strikes are genuinely difficult to find.