The Bank of Italy commemorated 500,000 Lire banknote with the Raphael’s School of Athens fresco painting. The combination of colors such as purple, dark blue, and bright green is used to design banknote. The front side of the note features ‘Triumph of Galatea’ fresco which is also owned by Raphael.

The ‘School of Athens’ was a fresco painting created by Raphael during the renaissance period. This piece of art was painted between 1509 and 1511 at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. The ‘School of Athens’ is one of a group of four frescoes paintings on the walls of the Stanza. These paintings depict philosophy, poetry, music, theology and law.

The lira currency of Italy was in circulation between 1861 and 2002. The Bank of Italy started to produce paper money since 1896.

The Bank of Italy introduced 500, 000 lira note in 1997. The dimension of the note was 163 x 78 mm.

The Lega Nord began a campaign in 2005 to reintroduce the lira as a parallel currency.

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia