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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2013
The long-established popularity of the Venetian gold ducat or sequin as a medium for international trade in the Levant, is easily accounted for by its unvarying fineness and constant types from its first appearance in the thirteenth century to the end of the Republic in 1797. Throughout this long period it held its own as the standard gold coin of the Levant trade. Imitations of varying date, standard, and work-manship are an inevitable consequence of this popularity: they are found so far afield as India, and are even at the present day manufactured for jewellers' purposes in Alexandria.
A conspicuous mediaeval example of these trade imitations is to be found in a series of more or less barbarous imitations of the sequin of Andrea Dandolo (1343–54), which, though attributed to no definite mint, have long been recognised as a Levant currency. The designs are imitated closely from the Venetian original, the name of the doge and the motto of the reverse—Sit tibi, Christe, datus quern tu—regis iste ducatus—being blundered or distorted in various ways.
page 261 note 1 Ἀνέκδοτα νομίσματα κοπέντα ἐν Гλαρέντσᾳ (1876), pp. 1–7Google Scholar; the attribution is provisionally accepted by Schlumberger, in Num. de l'Orient Latin, p. 320Google Scholar.
page 262 note 1 Among half a dozen of these sequins bought by me (1912) in Constantinople, and all of the same fabric, one omits the K altogether.
page 262 note 2 The legend of the first, ANDRDTAO, is certainly blundered for ANDRQTAR, that of the second is recognised by Lambros himself as derived in part from the sequin of Gradonigo.
page 262 note 3 It may be of interest to note that this year I obtained a very base Sequin of the ‘Clarenza type at Konia, while a hoard of forty fine specimens appeared at Constantinople. In Greece I have never met with a ‘K’ Sequin and have only once seen a blundered Sequin of Dandolo.
page 263 note 1 The Rhodian Knights also struck them from the reign of Antonio Fluviano (1421–37) onwards.
page 263 note 2 Document of 1357 published in Giornale Ligustico, i. (1874), p. 84Google Scholar.
page 263 note 3 The Genoese in Chios had the right to coin silver from the establishment of the colony (Doc. in Pagano, , Imprese dei Genovesi, p. 281Google Scholar).
page 263 note 4 It will be noted that both the Genoese colonies and Rhodes began to strike gold in their own name between 1420–1430, so that the cause probably lay in local affairs, not Genoese.
page 263 note 5 P. 271.
page 264 note 2 In spite of the detail in which the island is treated by Coronelli, this Venetian exploit is not mentioned.
page 264 note 3 Photeinos, , Νεαμονήσια (Athens, 1865), pp. 185, ff.Google Scholar; Χίου is probably inserted because the Chian imitations were of a standard inferior to that of the Venetian original.
