Venetian grosso

The Renaissance of the 12th century brought wealth and economic sophistication, but Venetians continued to use the badly debased remnants of the coinage system introduced by Charlemagne.

[1] The consistent fineness of the English sterling, or short cross penny, which Henry II introduced in 1180 made it a popular trading currency in Northern Europe.

[3] But it remained for Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice to make the decisive breakthrough with a higher denomination coin of fine silver called a grosso.

Even though coinage of the grosso might have begun a few years earlier, the influx of silver used to pay for the crusaders' ships led to its first large scale mintage.

[6] It was initially called a ducatus argenti since Venice was a duchy, but is more widely known as a grosso or matapano, a Muslim term referring to the seated figure on its reverse.

Verona, Bologna, Reggio, Parma and Pavia all had coins of pure silver with weights roughly that of the Venetian grosso by 1230.

By 1304, the Byzantine empire issued the basilikon, whose weight and fineness made it essentially interchangeable with the Venetian grosso and whose types were clearly inspired by it.

[13] More than that, the Venetian grosso is the most prominent division point between the coinage system of Western Europe based on the penny and the era of larger silver and gold coins, collectively called groats and florins.

Like the Venetian grosso, these larger denomination coins did not have names or inscriptions implying a fixed value in terms of the system of pounds, shillings and pence (or lira, soldi and denari in Italian) in which accounts were kept.