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100 000 Lire Caravaggio - 1st type
| Issuer | Banca d'Italia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1983-1993 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 156 × 70 mm |
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| Obverse description | A vignette of Caravaggio's painting 'La Buona Ventura' (The Fortune Teller) occupies the center of the note, rendered in intaglio with fine engraved detail. A portrait of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio appears to the right, set against an intricate guilloche underprint. The denomination '100000' and the issuing bank name 'BANCA D'ITALIA' are inscribed across the face, with engraver and designer credits noted in the lower margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a large intaglio vignette of Caravaggio's 'Canestra di frutta' (Basket of Fruit), positioned to the left, rendered with exceptional engraved detail against a multicoloured guilloche underprint. The numeral '100.000' appears in bold red intaglio at the upper right. The engraver's credit 'G. CAPPONI INC.' is inscribed below the central vignette, with the anti-counterfeiting legend and 'OFFICINA DELLA BANCA D'ITALIA' placed to the lower right. |
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| Comments |
The 100,000 Lire denomination only became practical once Italian inflation had thoroughly eroded the lira's purchasing power — by the early 1980s, a note of this value was needed for ordinary transactions, not exceptional ones. Banca d'Italia's decision to use Caravaggio as the central theme was a deliberate cultural statement during a period when the institution was reasserting its design ambitions after years of conservative issue policy.
Cionini and Capponi's intaglio work on the obverse is technically accomplished even by European central bank standards of the period. The Officina della Banca d'Italia, one of the few state printing works that engraved and printed entirely in-house, handled the full production run across the note's decade-long lifespan.