1 Follaro - Civil Issue

Shkodër's civic coinage of the late 14th century was produced during a period of intense political fragmentation in the Adriatic hinterland, when the city passed through Balšić dynastic control before falling under Venetian administration in 1396. These small copper issues circulated locally as the Albanian coastal towns struggled to maintain commercial function amid Ottoman pressure from the east and competing Serbian and Venetian interests from every other direction. The follaro denomination itself derives from the Byzantine follis tradition, attenuated through southern Italian and Adriatic intermediaries.