Italy 50000 Lire banknote 1977 Leonardo da Vinci
Obverse: On the right, a bust of Leonardo da Vinci, from a self-portrait in sanguine from the collection of the Palazzo Reale Museum in Turin. The watermark reproduces Leonardo's three-quarters portrait of Saint Anne facing the centre of the note.
Reverse: In the centre, a copperplate vignette reproducing a view of the town of Vinci, Leonardo's place of birth.
Drawing: Florenzo Masino Bessi.
Etching: Mario Baiardi.
Dimensions: 166 x 82 mm. (including white margins); coloured portion, 154 x 70 mm.
Paper: high-quality pinkish Havana, watermark.
Characteristics: Copperplate and indirect typography (dry offset).
Printer: Bank of Italy Printing Works.
No. notes authorized: 125,000,000.
Legislation: Ministerial Decree of 27 June 1967.
Italian banknotes and paper money from Italy
1962-1974 Issue
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Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".
Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait[4] and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin.
Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, an armoured vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.