500 Lire University of Pisa

Issued to mark the sixth centenary of the University of Pisa's formal refounding under a bull issued by Pope Boniface IX in 1343 — though the institution claims continuous roots to the eleventh century. The commemorative 500 lire format was Italy's workhorse silver commemorative denomination through the 1980s and early 1990s, struck in the same .835 fineness as the circulating bimetallic type but produced exclusively for collectors.