500 Lire

Vincenzo Azzolini, who signed the later dates in this series as Governor of the Banca d'Italia, was arrested in 1944 for collaborating with the German occupation authorities — specifically for facilitating the transfer of Italian gold reserves to Nazi Germany following the armistice. His name appears on the majority of surviving examples, the Azzolini & Urbini pairing alone spanning five years of wartime issue.

The sheer number of issue dates across sixteen years reflects continuous demand rather than periodic redesign — the plate was never substantially altered. Bonifacio Stringher, who signed the earliest dates, had stewarded the Banca d'Italia through the First World War and died in office in 1930, making the June 1929 and March 1930 dates among his last official acts.