50 Euros Luís Vaz de Camões

Camões died in Lisbon in 1580, the same year Philip II of Spain absorbed Portugal into the Iberian Union — a coincidence that Portuguese nationalist tradition has never quite let go of, casting his death as symbolically timed with the end of Portuguese independence. Whether that framing is history or mythology hardly matters; it calcified into cultural fact within a generation. This is a French mint issue, not a Banco de Portugal release, produced under the bilateral agreements that allow the Monnaie de Paris to strike legal tender for other sovereignties.