2 1/2 Euros Marcos Portugal

This piece belongs to Portugal's long-running series honoring figures of national historical significance, issued by INCM under a program that began in 2008 and has produced dozens of individual commemoratives. Marcos Portugal — the Lisbon-born composer who spent the bulk of his career in Italy and later Brazil — was one of the most celebrated opera composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, though his reputation collapsed almost entirely after his death as Rossini's style eclipsed his own.

He died in Rio de Janeiro in 1830, having followed the Portuguese royal court into Brazilian exile after Napoleon's invasion of 1807.