The official site of Italy's central bank

1896-98

The law that established the Bank of Italy also lay down the term of two years for replacing the old paper money in circulation with the new kind of banknotes.

The Bank quickly began to work on the new banknotes project, and by the autumn of 1894, the Head of the Banknote Printing Office, Giulio Cesare Carraresi, was ready to entrust Rinaldo Barbetti, a famous goldsmith from Siena working in Florence, with the task of designing the new notes.

Barbetti's proposal to put portraits of illustrious people on one of the sides of the banknotes was rejected in favour of reproductions of complex decorative motifs which were more difficult to falsify.

The choice of allegorical representations fell on subjects of a general nature such as Art (50 lire), Science (100 lire), Justice (500 lire), Industry, Trade and Agriculture (1,000 lire) and Credit (50, 500 and 1,000 lire). Then, to make it more difficult to falsify the new notes, they were printed in two or more colours, according to denomination, on white watermarked paper.

On the basis of Barbetti's designs, the Bank's printing works worked on engraving the wooden clichés, from which the metal clichés were produced to print the notes using a special (galvanoplastico) process. The manufacturing of the clichés was entrusted to the engraver Ballarini, of the Istituto S. Michele, famous for having worked on the banknotes issued by the Banca Nazionale nel Regno. The printing was done exclusively in the Printing Works.

The new "Banca d'Italia" banknotes were issued as of 1896.