1 Osella - Alvise Mocenigo I

The osella was Venice's answer to a ceremonial problem: doges were constitutionally barred from giving personal gifts to citizens, so the Senate formalized an annual silver distribution on New Year's Day as an official state act. Alvise Mocenigo I issued this piece during one of the most catastrophic years in Venetian history — 1576 saw a plague epidemic kill roughly a third of the city's population, including the painter Titian. That this coin was struck and distributed at all speaks to the Republic's insistence on institutional continuity even as the city buried its dead.