Story behind the 500 Lire coin design?

I grabbed this beautiful coin for $7 on Sunday. The Italy 500 Lire includes one of my favorite obverse & reverse designs. The obverse depicts a young girl in medieval dress and the reverse depicts the three ships used in Columbus’ first voyage to the new world. (Columbus may have sailed from Spain but he was Italian). I heard an interesting story about this piece. Apparently, the artist did not originally intend the design to be used on the 500 Lire coin. He originally made the beautiful piece as a gift to a lady friend (maybe his wife?). It was sometime later that the design was adopted for use on the Italian coin. If anyone knows the details of this story, please post it.

Very best regards,
collect89

 

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move the thread over to World & Ancient Coins ?

I'd like to learn more about the designer of this coin. Perhaps an administrator could move the thread over to World & Ancient Coins where someone may know the designer's name.

Very best regards,
collect89

 

I can't help you in your question, but wanted to say that is a very attractive coin!

 

I am not sure on the designer myself, but it is a coin that has intrigued myself for awhile also. I would love to buy a high MS example, blast white of said coin for my Italian lovelies collection. During the whole of the 20th century Italy produced for circulation some of the loveliest coins.

 

Pietro Giampaoli

A new 20 lira coin was designed by Pietro Giampaoli in 1957, and on the same year the "Caravels" 500 liras silver coin was minted. On the main face of the coin, Pietro Giampaoli represented a woman head with the symbols of the Italian regions; on the back side, Guido Veroi represented the Cristoforo Columbus caravels.

 

The 500 Lire note remained popular in circulation too, and like the coin is popular with collectors:

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got the story

Here is some data that I picked up from the Web so it must be true-

The five hundred Lira was initially minted in 1957 as a trial. The coins of 1958 to 1967 are common circulating coins which are about the size of a US half dollar (29.5mm). The date is located on the edge of the coin. Pieces dated 1957 apparently have the ship’s flag waving against the wind direction. This 1957 variety is supposed to be “a keeper”.

The obverse design is apparently the artistic work of Pietro Giampaoli and his wife Letizia Savonitto. The design was originally created in memory of the first 10 years of marriage. In 1951, a medallion with the same design won the first prize at the International Numismatics Exposition in Madrid.

The reverse depicts Columbus’s galleons; the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The reverse artist was Guido Veroi.

Very best regards,
collect89

 

Grazie.
I think that means thank you in Italian.

 

click the photo to see it large

I got this one a couple years ago. It belongs in an Italian Lovelies Coin Cabinet. I put the $5 coin in a slab for two reasons- (1) to find out the TPG grade and (2) to preserve it for future generations. This coin is not really blast white. It has a delicate gold surface that is not so obvious in this photo.

 

Your welcome
(il vostro benvenuto) according to babelfish
It was an interesting read and im convinced ill have to get one now.Thank you,it is a beautiful coin.The obverse somewhat reminiscent of the Gothic florin perhaps.I like it.

 

This is just a test to see if I can post large photos like the others here on CT by first placing the 250k photo on Photobucket.

 

What a realy lovely design, I think I shall have to find one of these as well LOL

On a side note, I hate to disagree with you guy's but I thought that everyone knew that Columbus was a Welshman

 

Any advice?

Nope, It still isn't working for me. My photo is still displayed as a thumbnail on CT which you need to click to enlarge. Scottishmoney's photos in this thread are displayed much larger. I'm trying to learn how to make that happen for my posted photos. Any advice?

 

Collect89, I have my own host for my website and the images are posted directly from it, they are not attachments to the post. That is the difference, when you upload on the Cointalk server, your images will be downsized to their standards to limit bandwidth usage and server space.

The one thing that is done to my images here is that you have to click on the top of them to supersize them to the original size, the owner/mods set that up again to limit bandwidth usage, which here is pretty high and costly given the volume. I don't myself have a problem with bandwidth usage so can post images like confetti and not have a problem with it.

 

Complete and utter rubbish, we all know in his heart he was a Scot, daring as he was to sail into the abyss with a reeky ship.:smile

 

Thank you.
I assumed that if I put my photo on Photobucket that it would provide me the same advantage as you describe. From the CT post, I selected manage attachments & then uploaded from the URL (instead of browsing & uploading a photo from my computer). However, the photo still gets posted on CT as a thumbnail. I have been experimenting with different physical photo sizes from about 3" high to 20" high with DPI and JPG compression which always keeps the photo file size below 249k but they are always reduced to thumbnails on CT. If you think of something else for me to try, please let me know.
Thanks & very best regards,
collect89

 

Thats a fine web site you have there Scottishmoney,i forsee many pleasurable hours reading there in the not so distant future,Thank you.Ive an interest in UK coins and have aquired several beauties.

 

Dang, now this is what I am talking about wanting to get one of sometime:

 

Not sure, but I use Firefox, I can right click on an image, select "copy image location" and post your image in full size. Not sure how/if that works in IE, I use IE only when absolutely necessary.

 

http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab269/collect89/CopyofItaly1967500LireCollageBk.jpg

Thanks for the help but I'm still getting the thumbnail displayed on CT.