50 000 Lire - John Paul II The lost son

Issued as part of the Vatican's Jubilee Year 2000 coinage program, one of the most ambitious numismatic releases in the modern Holy See's history. John Paul II authorized an extensive series of commemorative issues for the Jubilee, drawing on New Testament parables as thematic material — an unusual departure from the papal portraiture and doctrinal imagery that had dominated Vatican gold for decades.

The Jubilee 2000 series was struck at the Italian State Mint (Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato) in Rome, which has produced Vatican coinage under successive pontificates since the Lateran Treaty of 1929 formalized the arrangement.