Ducat
The ducat is an old currency from which the name comes from the Italian “ducato”. The etymology indicates that it is about one currency to the effigy of a duke. Generally, one speaks about ducat besides when one evokes the gold currency of the Doge de Venise - doge meaning duke in Venetian dialect.
At the beginning, the ducat was a gold coin struck since 1282 the model of the Florin of Florence: 3,60 G including 3,495 G of end, for 20 mms approximately in diameter. The towns of Tuscany return thus to the gold currency, which had not been struck practically any more in Occident since the beginning of VIIIe century.
Actually, it is Marseilles which, the first, had asked for to king de France the authorization of strike gold, with the imitation of the Arab and Byzantine parts. Too daring policy undoubtedly! Louis VIII, probably dubious on the means of managing it on the long run, will not give his downstream. The cities of industrial and commercial Tuscany of the Middle Ages take over, Pisa in 1252 then Florence, the following year. This same step is relatively late in Venice, probably because thanks to its foreign trade, Venice does not miss cash, having at disposal of the instruments of payment having course in the Middle East.
The part florentine, intended for the trade with the long course, was so well balanced and adapted to its function which she was imitated everywhere.
In 1543 the ducat of Venetian gold will change name, but not form, when the Mint the Zecca decides the striking of a large silver coin (23,4 G) called soon ducato ; as from this same date, the ducat of gold will take the name of Sequin ( zecchino coming from Zecca ).
About 1750 the ducat was worth, on the place, 8 books of 20 pennies. The Sequin was worth 22 of them, but it was in ducats of money that the public accounts of Sérénissime were kept.
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