Eight values, eight masterpieces

Italy's Pocket Gallery

Italian change is a miniature gallery where a castle, a tower, an arena, paintings, sculpture and poetry each receive their own value.

Euro banknotes are shared across the euro area. Italy gave every national coin denomination a different work, selected from architecture and art spanning the Middle Ages to Futurism.

The quick answer The cents move from Castel del Monte, Mole Antonelliana and the Colosseum to Botticelli, Boccioni and Marcus Aurelius. EUR 1 carries Leonardo's Vitruvian Man; EUR 2 carries Dante as painted by Raphael.
Meet the EUR

Paper money

Euro notes follow an easy architectural colour ladder - grey €5, red €10, blue €20, orange €50, green €100 and yellow €200 - wherever you spend them in Europe.

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The eight-room gallery

1 cCastel del Monte2 cMole Antonelliana5 cColosseum10 cBirth of Venus20 cBoccioni50 cMarcus AureliusEUR 1Vitruvian ManEUR 2Dante

Architecture begins the sequence

The three copper-coloured coins travel from the octagonal Castel del Monte to Turin's Mole Antonelliana and Rome's Colosseum. They turn the smallest change into a three-city architecture tour.

The middle values move through art history

Botticelli's Venus occupies 10 cent, a dynamic sculpture by Futurist Umberto Boccioni occupies 20 cent, and the equestrian Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio occupies 50 cent.

Leonardo and Dante anchor the euros

Leonardo's study of ideal human proportions makes EUR 1 instantly recognisable. EUR 2 uses Raphael's portrait of Dante from the Vatican Palace, placing literature on the highest regular value.

Shared notes, local masterpieces

An Italian EUR 20 note is the same banknote used across the euro area. Use our original illustrations for denomination and colour, then check real notes by touch, watermark, security thread and hologram.