500 Escudos Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony of Lisbon — born Fernando Martins de Bulhões around 1195 — spent remarkably little of his life in Portugal, having joined the Franciscans and died in Padua in 1231. Italy claimed his body; Portugal has argued the man ever since. This coin falls within a broader INCM commemorative program of the 1990s that leaned heavily on Franciscan and maritime iconography as the country positioned itself culturally ahead of the 1998 Lisbon Expo.

The .500 fineness places it at the lower end of silver commemorative standards, a cost-control decision that became common for Portuguese issues of this denomination in the mid-decade run.