Appendix 3

Coins of

The first town in to mint silver coins of a stable quantity and purity was Venice, which on the eve of the , under (1105 ?–1205; r. as 1192–1205) began to strike denari grossi with a silver content of .985 and an ideal weight of 2.18 grams. They differed from other silver coins of the same age by being a pure silver rather than a gold-silver alloy coin and by its beaded ring lined up with the edge of the flan. Thus clipping of the coins was prevented and it could thus be transacted by count rather than having to be weighed. The old penny which shortly thereafter assumed the name of “small” penny or piccolo stood to the grosso most plausibly in a relationship of 1: 24. The grosso was used in large-scale commerce and credit, while the piccolo served the needs of local trade in towns and countryside and in the payment of wages. While the grosso remained unchanged for almost 200 years, the relation of the piccolo to the grosso started to deteriorate. Exchange rates of 1231, 1259, and 1265 amount to 25, 26 2/3, and 27 piccoli per grosso. In February 1267 the official exchange rate was set at 26.11, in December of the same year at 28, and in May 1282 at 32 piccoli per grosso.1 The first truly successful gold coin was the celebrated florin, which was struck by the Florentines in 1252. It was a pure gold coin of an intended weight of 3.545 grams.2 Many references list Giovanni Dandolo (r. 1280– 1289) as the creator of the Venetian in 1284, but it is claimed by one author that this gold coin actually originated years before, in 1274, when the Doge (r. 1268–1275) began minting a gold coin

1 See Alan M. Stahl, Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages, Baltimore, Lon- don and New York: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the American Numismatic Society, 2000, pp. 16–27. Cf. also Gino Luzzatto, An Economic History of Italy: From the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the 16th Century, transl. by Philip Jones, Lon- don: Routledge, 2005, p. 127. For more and partly somewhat different rates between grosso and piccolo cf. also Louise Buenger Robbert, “Il sistema monetario,” in Giorgio Cracco and Gherardo Ortalli (eds.), Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima; II: L’età del Comune, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, Isti- tuto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1995, p. 427. 2 Stahl (2000), pp. 28–33; Luzzatto (2005), p. 128. 472 appendix 3

Table 32. Average weight of a Venician groat (grosso), 1205–1311

Doge Weight Enrico Dandolo (r. 1192–1205) 2.18g** (r. 1205–1229) 2.22g 2.09g* Jacopo Tiepolo (r. 1229–1249) 2.16g Marino Morosini (r. 1249–1253) 2.13g Ranieri Zeno (r. 1253–1268) 2.14g 2.11g* Lorenzo Tiepolo (r. 1268–1275) 2.16g 2.01g* Jacopo (r. 1275–1280) 2.14g 2.14g* Giovanni Dandolo (r. 1280–1289) 2.04g 2.18g* Pietro Gradenigo (r. 1289–1311) 2.14g Average weight 2.13g

Sources: If not otherwise indicated, the weights of the coins were taken from A. H. Baldwin & Sons LTD., “Coins of Venice,” August 2005, pp. 1–4, http://www.baldwin.sh/coinlists/venice.pdf (accessed August 4, 2009). Notes: * “French and English Royal and Medieval Coins” → “Coins of Italy” → “Venice,” http:// home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/venice.htm (accessed August 4, 2009). ** Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renais- sance Venice; vol. 1: Coins and Moneys of Account, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, p. 117.

­weighing 3.5 grams and struck in .986 gold.3 The gold ducat remained virtually unchanged under the succeeding 73 .4 According to the Venetian zecca’s thirteenth-century mint regula- tions, a tolerance of 0.3% was theoretically permitted in the minting of the grosso, which would have resulted in weights ranging from 2.178 to 2.185 g per coin.5 However, as we can see from Table 32 listing surviving specimens of Venetian grossi, the weight of this coin during ’s time could range from 2.01 g to 2.22 g, with an average of 2.13 g. Marica Milanesi in her edition of the Ramusio version of Marco Polo’s book gives a weight for the of 1.962 g.6 In view of the numismatic

3 See http://www.omnicoin.com/news/Default.aspx?tabid=52 (accessed August 4, 2009). 4 See “French and English Royal and Medieval Coins” → “Coins of Italy” → “Venice,” http://home.eckerd.edu/~oberhot/venice.htm (accessed August 4, 2009). 5 Cf. Stahl (2000), pp. 362–363. 6 See Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Navigazioni e Viaggi, ed. by Marica Milanesi, Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1980, p. 915.