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Venetian Ducat Gold Coin
The gold ducat (ducato d'oro) minted by the Republic of Venice from 1284, known for its stable fineness and St.…
Timeline
- 1284Venice Mint · Venetian LagoonThe Venetian Senate established the gold ducat standard, with a kneeling doge on the obverse and Christ on the reverse, weighing about 3.5 grams, aiming to consolidate the Republic's monetary dominance in eastern Mediterranean commercial settlements.
- 1300–1330Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea · Black SeaDucats followed Venetian merchant ships into Crete, Cyprus, the environs of Constantinople, and Black Sea grain ports, becoming the gold coin for pricing bulk trades in spices, silk, and grain, gradually replacing various local gold coins.
- 1331–1340Venice and Bruges commercial nodes · Venetian LagoonVenetian merchants widely used ducats for payment in the Low Countries and English wool trade, and formed a stable exchange rate with the Florentine florin in Low Countries exchange markets, supporting cross-continental long-distance commercial credit networks in the 1330s.
Sources
- Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, Vol. 1: Coins and Moneys of Account — Frederic C. Lane and Reinhold C. Mueller (1985)
- Medieval European Coinage, Vol. 12: Northern Italy — Philip Grierson and Lucia Travaini (1998)