1 Rouble Francisk Skorina's Way. Venice

This piece belongs to a Belarusian commemorative series tracing the European journey of Francysk Skaryna, the Renaissance polymath from Polack who produced the first printed books in the Eastern Slavic tradition. His Venetian stop matters: in the early sixteenth century he earned a doctorate in medicine from the University of Padua — one of Europe's most prestigious faculties — after examiners reportedly marveled that a man from so distant a land could demonstrate such learning. Venice and Padua were effectively the same intellectual world at that moment.

The oxidized copper-nickel finish was chosen deliberately across this series to evoke aged bronze and distance the pieces from conventional circulation coinage.