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1 Zecchino - Alvise Mocenigo IV
| Issuer | Republic of Venice |
|---|---|
| Year | 1763-1778 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 3.494 g |
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| Obverse description | Saint Mark standing at left, robed and nimbed, presenting a staff surmounted by a cross to the Doge kneeling at right in ceremonial vestments; the inscription DVX appears vertically in the central field between the two figures. The peripheral legend is divided on either side of the design. The composition follows the traditional Venetian zecchino iconographic scheme established centuries earlier. |
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| Reverse description | Full-length frontal figure of Christ in Majesty, nimbed and robed, with right hand raised in benediction and left hand holding the Gospels; the figure stands within a beaded oval mandorla decorated with six-pointed stars in the field between the inner and outer borders. The circular peripheral legend surrounds the entire composition, invoking Christ as the source of ducal authority. The design is struck in high relief consistent with late Venetian Republic zecchino production. |
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| Additional information |
Alvise Mocenigo IV served as Doge from 1763 until his death in 1778, a reign that coincided with Venice's increasingly precarious position as an independent power. The Republic was by this period a diplomatic shadow of itself, maintaining the gold zecchino as an almost ritual assertion of continuity — the coin's purity and weight standard had been held to with remarkable consistency since the late thirteenth century, making it one of the longest-lived monetary standards in European history.
That unbroken standard is precisely why Levantine and Ottoman merchants continued accepting Venetian gold long after the Republic had lost any serious military or commercial leverage in the eastern Mediterranean.