500 Lire Horatius

Issued as part of Italy's "Bimetallic and Silver Series" commemorating figures from Roman history and literature, this piece honors Quintus Horatius Flaccus — the Augustan poet whose Odes and Satires survived largely intact through monastic copying during the early medieval period. Horace was born in 65 BC in Venusia, the son of a freed slave, and rose to become one of the most influential voices of the Augustan cultural program.

Italy's commemorative 500 Lire silver program of the early 1990s drew modest collector interest domestically but stronger demand abroad, particularly in the United States and Germany.