Alvise Mocenigo III served as Doge from 1722 to 1732, a period when Venice was quietly hemorrhaging its remaining Mediterranean trade dominance to Ottoman pressure and rising Atlantic commercial powers. The billon soldo issues of this reign were workhorses of small commerce in a city-state running on institutional inertia as much as genuine economic vitality.
The .390 fineness places this squarely in Venice's long tradition of deliberately debased small change — a policy the Republic had pursued since the sixteenth century to keep petty coinage circulating rather than melted.
Alvise Mocenigo III served as Doge from 1722 to 1732, a period when Venice was quietly hemorrhaging its remaining Mediterranean trade dominance to Ottoman pressure and rising Atlantic commercial powers. The billon soldo issues of this reign were workhorses of small commerce in a city-state running on institutional inertia as much as genuine economic vitality.
The .390 fineness places this squarely in Venice's long tradition of deliberately debased small change — a policy the Republic had pursued since the sixteenth century to keep petty coinage circulating rather than melted.