10 000 Lire

This high-denomination note was introduced in 1948 against the backdrop of postwar reconstruction and the catastrophic inflation that had decimated Italian savings during and immediately after the war — the lira had lost roughly 90% of its value between 1938 and 1945. A 10,000-lira note was once unthinkable as a routine instrument; by 1948 it was a practical necessity for everyday commerce.

Capranesi was one of the Officina Carte Valori's most prolific designers in the interwar and postwar decades. The series ran through 1962, spanning fourteen years of Italy's so-called economic miracle, by which point the denomination had become almost modest.