500 Tolarjev Zois Žiga

Žiga Zois (1747–1819) was the central node of Slovenian Enlightenment intellectual life — a baron, mineralogist, and patron who funded scholars, maintained a salon in Ljubljana, and effectively bankrolled the foundational work of Jernej Kopitar and Valentin Vodnik. The mineral zoisite was named after him in 1805 by Abraham Gottlob Werner. This commemorative was issued as Slovenia was still consolidating its monetary identity following independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, and the Tolar series of collector coins drew heavily on figures whose contributions had been suppressed or de-emphasized under federal cultural policy.