500 Lire Piero della Francesca

Issued as part of Italy's long-running commemorative lire program, this coin marks the quincentenary of Piero della Francesca's death in 1492. Piero spent his final decades nearly blind, dictating mathematical treatises rather than painting — his written work on perspective and the five regular solids was as influential among Renaissance geometers as his frescoes were among painters.

The .835 silver standard used here was the traditional Italian commemorative fineness, carried forward from earlier republic-era issues rather than the sterling or .900 used by most contemporaries.