1 Grosso - Enrico Dandolo

Enrico Dandolo was blind and in his nineties when he led the Fourth Crusade — and when the grosso bearing his name was first struck. Venice had introduced the grosso under his predecessor Ziani around 1194, but Dandolo's issues fall squarely within the years he manipulated the crusading army into sacking Zara and, ultimately, Constantinople in 1204, redirecting a holy war toward Venetian commercial ends. The Serenissima emerged from that catastrophe controlling three-eighths of the Byzantine Empire.

The .965 fineness held rigidly — Venice's monetary credibility in Levantine trade depended on it.