100 000 Lire Manzoni

The 100,000 Lire was the highest denomination issued by Banca d'Italia during this period, a denomination so large relative to everyday purchasing power that most examples spent their lives in bank vaults rather than wallets. Circulation was effectively confined to interbank settlements and major commercial transactions.

A known weakness of the series is ink adhesion on heavily handled examples — the deep intaglio work by Baiardi on the obverse is particularly prone to surface scuffing along high-relief areas, which makes genuinely clean used examples harder to find than the relatively modest print run might suggest.