4 Zecchini - Ramon Perellos y Roccaful

Ramon Perellos y Roccaful served as Grand Master from 1697 to 1720, one of the longer tenures of the period, during which the Order was increasingly squeezed between Ottoman naval power to the east and the shifting alliances of European Catholic monarchies that had once been its reliable patrons. The 4 Zecchini denomination was never a workhorse of commerce — it circulated among merchants, diplomats, and the Order's own financial transactions, where high-purity gold spoke more reliably than any sovereign guarantee.

The .986 fineness held to the Venetian zecchino standard, a deliberate alignment that kept Hospitaller gold credible in Levantine trade networks long after Malta's military relevance had begun to erode.