10 Euros Augustus

Issued as part of Italy's ongoing "Grandi Personaggi" bullion and collector series, this piece commemorates Augustus in the year that marked the bimillennium of his death — 14 AD to 2014, though Italian mint scheduling pushed several bimillennial issues into surrounding years. Augustus remains the only Roman ruler under whom the entire Mediterranean littoral was unified under a single fiscal and administrative authority, a fact the Zecca has leaned on repeatedly for this series.

The .900 fineness follows the traditional standard for Italian gold coinage rather than the .9999 now common among European sovereign mints.