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50 Lire Lupetta
| Issuer | Banca d'Italia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1943-1944 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 129 × 72 mm |
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| Obverse description | Central guilloche wreath in blue and pink tones frames a large circular watermark window at left, with the issuer's title BANCA D'ITALIA and denomination LIRE CINQUANTA in bold letterpress at centre-right. A red intaglio vignette of a female head in profile occupies the upper right, while the legend PAGABILI A VISTA AL PORTATORE appears below, flanked by the printed signatures of the Governor and the Cashier. The note was printed at the Officina della Banca d'Italia in L'Aquila, as indicated by the imprint at the foot. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A central rectangular vignette in green intaglio reproduces the celebrated Capitoline Wolf bronze, showing the she-wolf suckling the infants Romulus and Remus on a plinth. The vignette is set within an elaborate floral and foliate guilloche border in olive-brown tones, with a circular watermark window at right. The denomination 50 LIRE appears in a scroll cartouche at lower right, and a circular Banca d'Italia monogram medallion is positioned at the lower left. |
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| Comments |
The "Lupetta" nickname — derived from the she-wolf watermark visible when held to light — distinguished this emergency wartime issue from earlier 50 Lire notes in circulation. Banca d'Italia had relocated printing operations to L'Aquila after the Allied bombing campaigns made Rome increasingly untenable as a production center, and this note is among the direct products of that displacement.
The 1943–44 date range straddles the armistice of September 1943, meaning notes from this series circulated under both the Badoglio government and, in occupied territories, alongside German-introduced Reichskreditkassenscheine. Survival rates vary sharply by region for exactly that reason.