500 000 Lire Raffaello

Italy's highest-denomination lira note ever issued for general circulation, the 500.000 Lire entered production just as the country was locking in its entry to the Eurozone — a currency reform that would render the entire lira series obsolete within a few years. The timing was awkward at best. By the late 1990s, inflation had eroded the lira so thoroughly that this note, nominally enormous, was worth roughly €258 at the fixed conversion rate established on 1 January 1999.

Cionini and Capponi were both veteran intaglio engravers at the Officina, and the plate work on this note is among the finest produced by the Rome facility before the lira's withdrawal in 2002.