Venetian grosso

The Venetian grosso (plural Grossi) is a silver coin first introduced in Venice in 1193 under doge Enrico Dandolo. It originally weighed 2.18 grams, was composed of 98.5% pure silver, and was valued at 26 dinarii. Its name is from the same root as groschen and the English groat, all deriving ultimately from the denaro grosso ("large penny").

Its value was allowed to float relative to other Venetian coins until it was pegged to 4 soldini in 1332, incidentally the year the soldino was introduced.

In 1332, 1 grosso was the equivalent of 4 soldini, or 48 dinarii.

Economic Background

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. Venice struck silver pennies (called denari in Italian) based on the coinage of Verona, which contained less than half a gram of 25% fine silver. Domestic transactions predominantly used these coins or their Veronese counterparts. About 1180, however, Verona modified its coinage, upsetting this practice. For foreign trade, Venetian merchants favored Byzantine coinage or coins of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 and the progressing debasement of the Byzantine aspron trachy, however, made this less viable.

Grosso

Grosso is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Turin. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,002 and an area of 4.3 square kilometres (1.7 sq mi).

Grosso borders the following municipalities: Corio, Mathi, Nole, and Villanova Canavese.

Demographic evolution

References

Grosso (surname)

Grosso or Del Grosso is an Italian surname:

See also

Groschen

Groschen (Latin: Grossus, German:  Groschen , Italian: grosso or grossone, Czech: groš, Lithuanian: grašis, Estonian: kross, Polish: grosz, Albanian: grosh, Hungarian: garas, Russian, Ukrainian, Macedonian and Bulgarian: грош (groš), Romanian: groș) was the (sometimes colloquial) name for a coin used in various German-speaking states as well as some non-German-speaking countries of Central Europe (Bohemia, Poland), the Danubian Principalities. The name, like that of the English groat, derives from the Italian denaro grosso, or large penny, via the Czech form groš. The Qirsh (also Gersh, Grush, Γρόσι (Grósi) and Kuruş), Arabic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish names for currency denominations in and around the territories formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, are derived from the same Italian origin.

History

Names like Groschen, grossus/grossi, grosso, grossone, grosz, gros, groš, groat, Groten, garas etc. were used in the Middle Ages for all thick silver coins, as opposed to thin silver coins such as deniers or pennies. Historically it was equal to between several and a dozen denarii.