1 Lira

The Banca Nazionale nel Regno d'Italia was itself a provisional institution — Italy had unified only in 1861, and the country still lacked a single central bank, with several regional banks of issue operating simultaneously throughout this period. This 1 Lira note belongs to the fractional currency that effectively replaced small silver coinage hoarded by a public with no faith in the new state's finances.

Dondorf & Naumann were primarily known for playing cards and chromolithographic work; their banknote commissions were a secondary business, and Italian authorities turned to Frankfurt partly because domestic printing infrastructure for secure currency was still underdeveloped in the early Kingdom.