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1 Osella - Alvise Mocenigo II
| Issuer | Republic of Venice |
|---|---|
| Year | 1702 |
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| Currency | Lira (1618-1752) |
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|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | The Lion of St. Mark rampant to left, depicted in a dynamic heraldic posture and grasping an upright sword around whose blade a serpent is coiled, symbolising prudence and martial strength. To the right stands a castle tower, and to the left a galley under sail is depicted at sea, representing Venice's territorial and naval dominion. The reverse legend 'PRVDENTIA ET FORTITVDO' encircles the composition, proclaiming the twin virtues of Prudence and Fortitude as the guiding principles of the Venetian state. |
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| Additional information |
The osella was Venice's answer to a gift-giving tradition that had outgrown live wildfowl. Doges had long presented wild ducks to the Great Council each January; by the sixteenth century the Senate had formalized a struck silver coin in their place, with the reigning doge commissioning a new reverse design annually. Gold strikes like this one were reserved for diplomatic presentation — not circulation — making survival rates entirely dependent on how carefully foreign recipients treated what they understood to be a ceremonial object rather than money.
Alvise Mocenigo II held the dogeship from 1700 until his death in 1709, a tenure defined largely by Venice's increasingly precarious neutrality during the War of the Spanish Succession.