Zecca of Venice

Zecca of Venice - Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Zecca (English: Mint) is a sixteenth-century building in Venice, Italy which once housed the mint of the Republic of Venice. Built between 1536 and 1548, the heavily rusticated stone structure, originally with only two floors, was designed by Jacopo Sansovino in place of an earlier mint specifically to ensure safety from fire and to provide adequate security for the silver and gold deposits. Giorgio Vasari considered it the finest, richest, and strongest of Sansovino's buildings ("...bellissimo, ricchissimo, e fortissimo edificio de' suoi è la Zecca di Venezia...").Vasari, Le vite..., VII (1881), p. 504. The quote does not appear in the 1568 edition of Vite but was included in an expanded biography of Sansovino written by Vasari after 1570 and republished in 1789. See Gaetano Milanesi's note on page 485. Read more on Wikipedia

type: historic site
date from: 1536

Source: en.wikipedia.org