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1 Zecchino - Pietro Gradenigo
| Issuer | Republic of Venice |
|---|---|
| Year | 1289-1311 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 20 mm |
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| Obverse description | Obverse depicts Saint Mark the Evangelist standing facing in the center field, presenting a long banner-staff to the kneeling Doge Pietro Gradenigo, who kneels in profile to the right in a posture of submission and devotion. Saint Mark is shown with a nimbus, wearing long robes, while the Doge is depicted in his characteristic ducal vestments. The abbreviated legend surrounding the figures reads PE GRADONICO S M VENETI DVX, identifying the Doge and his patron saint. The design is rendered in the accomplished flat, linear style characteristic of Venetian hammered gold coinage of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The coin's irregular flan is bordered by a beaded inner circle. |
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| Obverse lettering | ·PE·GRADONICO S·M·VENETI DVX |
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| Additional information |
Pietro Gradenigo is better remembered for engineering the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio in 1297 — the constitutional lock that permanently restricted membership in Venice's governing council to established noble families — than for his coinage. The Serrata effectively created a closed hereditary aristocracy and triggered the failed Tiepolo-Querini conspiracy of 1310, which nearly ended his reign violently.
The zecchino itself had been standardized under his predecessor Lorenzo Tiepolo's era and maintained its .998 fineness with extraordinary consistency across doges, a discipline that made the Venetian ducat the dominant trade coin of the medieval Mediterranean.