António Manoel de Vilhena served as Grand Master from 1722 to 1736, a period during which the Order maintained its increasingly anachronistic role as a Mediterranean naval power fighting Ottoman corsairs. The zecchino — borrowed directly from the Venetian ducat tradition in name, fineness, and weight standard — was the Order's prestige gold denomination, struck to facilitate trade and diplomacy rather than everyday exchange on the island.
Vilhena is better remembered for his building program in Malta than his coinage; the fortified city of Floriana and the Manoel Theatre both bear his name and survive intact.
António Manoel de Vilhena served as Grand Master from 1722 to 1736, a period during which the Order maintained its increasingly anachronistic role as a Mediterranean naval power fighting Ottoman corsairs. The zecchino — borrowed directly from the Venetian ducat tradition in name, fineness, and weight standard — was the Order's prestige gold denomination, struck to facilitate trade and diplomacy rather than everyday exchange on the island.
Vilhena is better remembered for his building program in Malta than his coinage; the fortified city of Floriana and the Manoel Theatre both bear his name and survive intact.