Zecchino
Also: sequin (the coin), Venetian ducat
The zecchino was the Venetian gold coin, struck from 1284 as the ducat, whose name gave us the word sequin.
The zecchino was the gold coin of the Venetian Republic. It was first struck in 1284 as the ducat, at about 3.5 grams of nearly pure gold, and was renamed after the Venetian mint, the zecca, in the middle of the sixteenth century. Its name passed through French to English as sequin.
When was it made?
Britannica dates the first Venetian ducat to 1284 and gives its weight as 3.56 grams; one account of the name puts the change to zecchino at 1543, another at the mid-sixteenth century. The design barely changed until the Republic fell in the 1790s.
What does one look like?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a zecchino struck under Doge Domenico Contarini, who ruled from 1659 to 1675. It is gold, 22 millimeters across, and shows Christ in an oval of beads and stars. A small hole is pierced through its rim.
Why does it matter to fashion?
Accounts of Mediterranean dress say women sewed zecchini to clothing and headdresses, and the coin's name later passed to the shiny discs that replaced them. See sequin.
Sources
- Ducat. Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Zecchino, Domenico Contarini (1659–75), 99.35.7225. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Zecchino (etymology). Etymonline
- Sequin. Wikipedia
See also
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