Portugal Banknotes 50 Escudos banknote 1964 Queen Santa Isabel
Bank of Portugal - Banco de Portugal
Obverse: Portrait of Queen Santa Isabel (Rainha Santa Isabel), Elizabeth of Aragon, also known as Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, queen consort of Portugal, a tertiary of the Franciscan Order and is venerated as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church (This picture, by the 16th-century Antwerp painter Quentin Matsys (also called Massys, or Metsys)). Portuguese coat of arms (Armillary sphere + the quinas + the castles). Leafy and flowery designs.
Reverse: Ancient Roman city map of Coimbra (Conimbria, Conimbriga, located 16km southwest of Coimbra) on the Illunda River, in Lusitania (Portugal), by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Köln, 1598. Bird's-eye plan and emblem of Coimbra from the South. Royal arms of Portugal within the map. Roses. Watermark: Identical portrait and bust of Queen Santa Isabel, Elizabeth of Aragon, surrounded by rays.
Main colours: Dark brown, tea rose orange and terra cotta.
Signatures: Manuel Jacinto Nunes (O Vice-Governador); António Luís Gomes (O Administrador).
Printer: Johan Enschede en Zonen (Netherlands) - JEZ.
Size: 142 x 70 mm.
Date of Issue: 28 February 1964 (from 21 June 1965 to 11 May 1979) 130,383,000 notes were issued.
Withdrawn from circulation: 31 December 1982.
Portugal banknotes - Portugal paper money
1964-1979 Issue
20 Escudos 50 Escudos 100 Escudos 500 Escudos
Saint Elizabeth of Portugal
Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, byname the Peacemaker, or the Holy Queen, Portuguese Santa Isabel de Portugal, or a Pacificadora, or a Rainha Santa (born c. 1271 — died July 4, 1336, Estremoz, Port.; canonized 1625; feast day July 4), daughter of Peter III of Aragon, wife of King Dinis (Denis) of Portugal.
She was named for her great-aunt St. Elizabeth of Hungary and received a strict and pious education. In 1282 she was married to Dinis, a good ruler but an unfaithful husband. Despite the corrupt court life, Elizabeth maintained her devout habits, helped the sick and the poor, and founded charitable establishments. When her son Afonso rebelled against his father, Elizabeth rode between the two armies and reconciled father and son. She also helped settle disputes among other royal relatives. After Denis' death in 1325, Elizabeth retired to the monastery of the Poor Clare nuns, now known as the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha (which she had founded in 1314) in Coimbra. She joined the Third Order of St. Francis, devoting the rest of her life to the poor and sick in obscurity. During the great famine in 1293, she donated flour from her cellars to the starving in Coimbra, but was also known for distributing small gifts, paying the dowries of poor girls, educating the children of poor nobles, and was a benefactor of various hospitals (Coimbra, Santarém and Leiria) and of religious projects (such as the Trinity Convent in Lisbon, chapels in Leiria and Óbidos, and the cloister in Alcobaça.
She was called to act once more as a peacemaker in 1336, when Afonso IV marched his troops against King Alfonso XI of Castile, to whom he had married his daughter Maria, and who had neglected and ill-treated her. In spite of age and weakness, the Queen-dowager insisted on hurrying to Estremoz, where the two kings' armies were drawn up. She again stopped the fighting and caused terms of peace to be arranged. But the exertion brought on her final illness. As soon as her mission was completed, she took to her bed with a fever from which she died on 4 July, in the castle of Estremoz.
Although Denis' tomb was located in Odivelas, Elizabeth was buried in the Convent of Santa Clara in Coimbra, in a magnificent Gothic sarcophagus. After frequent flooding by the Mondego River in the 17th century, the Poor Clares moved her mortal remains to the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova (also in Coimbra). Her body was transferred to the main chapel, where it was buried in a sarcophagus of silver and crystal.
Portrait of Queen Santa Isabel
Queen Saint Isabel, circle or follower of Quentin Metsys. 1st quarter of the 16th century. Oil on wood, 38 x 27 cm.
«This “portrait” of Isabel of Portugal with the crown and ermine mantle signalling her royal condition and a Franciscan cord necklace emphasising her religious sentiment, combines the devoltional convention of a hieratic presence marked by the sign of transcendence (the luminous halo surrounding her) with features of serene and human beauty. It is possible to allude to a type of iconic realism in the distinction and symmetry of the oval face, the elegant features, the subtly oblique eyes, connecting this “style” of female face design to Quentin Metsys’s models. The legend that appears at the bottom of the painting [“the queen saint Isabel”] does however indicate that if not painted by a Portuguese it had a Portuguese destiny that probably also indicated the nationality of the commission itself.
[…] In the inventory of the assets that Queen D. Leonor left to the convent [of Madre de Deus] in her will is “a painting of the Holy queen who lies in Coimbra” and which in 1537 was in the church sacristy […].»
Quentin Matsys
Quentin Matsys (Dutch: Quinten Matsijs) (1466–1530) was a painter in the Flemish tradition and a founder of the Antwerp school. He was born at Leuven, where legend states he was trained as an ironsmith before becoming a painter. Matsys was active in Antwerp for over 20 years, creating numerous works with religious roots and satirical tendencies.