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100 Lire 'Grande B' Testina and Fascio seals
| Issuer | Banca d'Italia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942-1943 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is rendered in warm brown and olive tones over a dense guilloche underprint framing the central composition. At right, an allegorical female figure stands on a pedestal holding an open book, attended by putti, executed in fine intaglio engraving; at left, an oval watermark window is flanked by additional putti groups. At centre-bottom, a large circular red seal bears a fascio littorio motif inscribed with the date 'OTTOBRE 1922', identifying this as the Fascio seal variety. |
| Reverse lettering | LIRE CENTO 100 OTTO-BRE 1922 DECRETO MINISTERIALE 19 MAGGIO 1926 ART. 2 DELLA LEGGE 10 AGOSTO 1893 N. 449. |
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| Comments |
Issued across the final years of Mussolini's regime and into the armistice period, this note bears witness to one of Italian numismatics' more confusing transitional sequences. The "Testina" and "Fascio" seals refer to the two overprint types applied to distinguish authorized from unauthorized circulation during the political collapse of 1943 — the same base note circulated under radically different governmental authority depending on which seal it carried.
Barbetti's designs for the Banca d'Italia were workmanlike rather than distinguished, and Ballarini's engraving reflects the institutional conservatism of Rome's Poligrafico. What makes this series collectible isn't the aesthetics — it's the seal combinations, which directly map to the chaotic months between the fall of the Fascist government in July 1943 and the German occupation of northern Italy.