Genoa's small billon fractional coinage of this period was produced under the Biennial Doges system, where executive authority rotated every two years — a constitutional arrangement designed explicitly to prevent any single family from consolidating power after the Visconti crisis of the fourteenth century. The coins themselves carried no individual doge's name, a deliberate policy of institutional anonymity that sets Genoese coinage apart from virtually every other Italian state of the period.
Billon composition reflects the chronic silver shortage that plagued Ligurian minting in the latter eighteenth century, not a debasement decision per se but a supply constraint.
Genoa's small billon fractional coinage of this period was produced under the Biennial Doges system, where executive authority rotated every two years — a constitutional arrangement designed explicitly to prevent any single family from consolidating power after the Visconti crisis of the fourteenth century. The coins themselves carried no individual doge's name, a deliberate policy of institutional anonymity that sets Genoese coinage apart from virtually every other Italian state of the period.
Billon composition reflects the chronic silver shortage that plagued Ligurian minting in the latter eighteenth century, not a debasement decision per se but a supply constraint.