Description and research notes
Oversized specimen of the short-lived Banca Italo-Germanica, engraved in the immediate aftermath of Italian unification. Founded in Rome with German capital, the bank intended to position itself as a bridge between northern European finance and the new Kingdom of Italy. In practice, its note-issuing project never advanced beyond archival and presentation pulls—no issued examples are known.
Printed by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. in London, the note exhibits unusually advanced design for its era: deep lathe-work, wide margins, and a large underprint watermark that foreshadowed 20th-century Italian layouts. The central allegory of Standing Italia holding shield and spear was a conscious patriotic statement in the 1870s, celebrating Italy’s political unification only a decade earlier. Uniquely, this imagery was prepared by BWC for a private bank rather than the state, showing how national symbols were quickly co-opted by commercial ventures seeking legitimacy.
Archival records suggest the Banca Italo-Germanica collapsed before its notes could circulate, leaving only specimen material. Surviving examples are vanishingly rare, and census data lists a single specimen in this state of preservation. Graded PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated and ranked Top Pop, this note represents not only a numismatic curiosity but also a cultural relic of Italy’s volatile 1870s banking landscape—an ambitious project that never left the drawing board.