Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages (review)

Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages. By Alan M. Stahl. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Pp. xv+497. $68.

Zecca is the Italian term for "mint"; it is derived from the Arabic for "die." In this book, Alan Stahl aims to present a complete picture of the workings of the Venetian mint from the ninth century, when it produced its first coins, to the height of the European Middle Ages, and in this aim he succeeds. The mint as an institution necessarily has broad significance for historians. Among the themes Stahl addresses—using both extensive archival research and the physical evidence of the coins themselves—are the politics of Venice's economic growth, the impact of social and demographic issues, the iconography of coins, the availability of metals, and the techniques of manufacturing and exchange.

The book is divided into three sections. The first traces the chronological development of Venetian coinage, from the minting of imperial coins in the ninth century to the elaboration of a full range of coins for local, colonial, and international use in the fourteenth century. The second discusses fiscal policies, from establishing new coins to determining their value to apprehending such criminals as clippers and counterfeiters. The final section concerns the employees and day-to-day functioning of the mint. Historians of technology and science will find it the most useful and interesting, as Stahl lays out the involved process by which coins were minted and the highest quality alloys assured, revealing a metallurgical and technological sophistication seemingly remarkable for the time.

Stahl's experience as a numismatist is evident as he blends a discussion of medieval metallurgy with modern scientific techniques and statistical analysis to reveal previously unknown information about the composition of the coins and the volume of coinage produced. Stahl also includes tables, drawings of the manufacturing process, and photographs of tools and of the final product, successfully bringing together visual, scientific, quantitative, and archival evidence.

Another of the book's strengths is its discussion of the various people who interacted with the mint—from its vast array of employees (engravers, refiners, weighers, casters), to its noble overseers (mint masters) and the Venetian government, to those who sold bullion and coins to the mint—and the job(s) each performed. This examination of the workers' interaction with the Venetian state recalls another portrait of Venetian manufacturing, Robert Davis's Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal. The image of the mint that Stahl presents is in many ways a microcosm of Venice itself: the unique interplay of government and merchant elite, the well-developed bureaucracy and rotating of offices, the international character of the city and mint, and the mixing of classes in the workplace.

Stahl's work assumes a sophisticated readership, and those less informed about the history of Venetian politics and empire, medieval economies, or numismatics may find some elements of the book puzzling. For example, Stahl traces the history of Venetian coinage first, but uses names and terms from the manufacturing process that are only fully developed and contextualized in the third part of the book. Given the technical terminology necessary for such a detailed study, a glossary might have been useful.

It should also be noted that there is neither an introduction nor a conclusion in which Stahl might have explained his periodization, established his argument, or assessed the historiography on medieval monies and mints. In his bibliography, Stahl lists a few studies of mints in Italy, England, and Ragusa—as well as an Italian history of the Venetian mint published in 1991—but fails to place his work in the context of any of these other histories, leaving the reader uncertain about how to assess this contribution to the field.

Finally, given the importance of Venice in medieval Mediterranean economies, a section that placed the Venetian mint in an international context or presented a survey of coinage issues elsewhere in Europe...