1 Zecchino - John de la Cassiere

John de la Cassiere served as Grand Master during one of the most consequential decades in the Order's history — his tenure began just one year after the Battle of Lepanto, the 1571 naval engagement in which the Order's galleys fought under the Holy League against the Ottoman fleet. The psychological and financial aftermath of that campaign shaped nearly every aspect of the Order's minting activity throughout the 1570s.

The Zecchino denomination was the Order's deliberate echo of the Venetian ducat, adopted to facilitate trade credibility across Mediterranean markets where Venetian gold commanded automatic acceptance.