1 Quartarolo - Reniero Zeno

Reniero Zeno's dogeship coincided with Venice's aggressive expansion of its commercial network across the eastern Mediterranean, a period when small-denomination billon coinage was essential for daily market transactions that the silver grosso was too valuable to handle. The quartarolo sat at the bottom of the Venetian denominational hierarchy, circulating primarily within the Rialto markets and the lagoon settlements rather than in long-distance trade.

Billon composition for coins of this type was notoriously inconsistent across the thirteenth century, with silver content varying enough that contemporaries sometimes hoarded or rejected individual pieces.