Italian 2011 €2 Euro Commemorative coin - The 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy
Commemorative 2 euro coins from Italy
Description: The inner part of the coin shows three Italian flags in the wind, representing the three anniversaries (1911, 1961 and 2011) and illustrating a link between generations; this is the logo of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. There are a number of inscriptions: at the top, the inscription 150º DELL'UNITÀ D'ITALIA; at the right, the initials RI; at the bottom, the dates 1861 › 2011 › ›; under the dates, at the centre, the mint mark, and at the right, the initials of the artist Ettore Lorenzo Frapiccini and his profession (incisore), ELF INC.. The twelve stars of the European Union surround the design on the outer ring of the coin.
Reverse: left from the coin centre face value: 2, on the right inscription: EURO; in the background of the inscription a map of Europe; in the background of the map vertically six parallel lines ending on both sides with five-pointed stars (the reverse is common for all euro coins)
Issuing volume: 10 million coins
Date of issue: March 2011
Face value: 2 euro
Diameter: 25.75 mm
Thickness: 2.2 mm
Weight: 8.5 gr
Composition: BiAlloy (Nk/Ng), ring Cupronickel (75% copper - 25% nickel clad on nickel core), center Nickel brass
Design: Ettore Lorenzo Frapiccini is credited as the engraver for the Italian 2011 €2 Euro Commemorative coin.
€2 Edge Inscription: The Italian €2 coin edge inscription is '2', followed by one star, repeated six times alternately upright and inverted:
Mint Location: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (IPZS) (State Printing Office and Mint), in Rome, Italy.
Mint Marks: Mintmark of the Rome mint: the letter 'R'.
National Identification: Symbol: Stylized 'RI'; Repubblica Italiana (Republic of Italy).
Italian unification - Risorgimento
Italian unification (Italian: Risorgimento, meaning the Resurgence) also known as Italian Revolution was the political and social movement for Italian unification that culminated in the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Despite a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and end of this period, many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and the end of Napoleonic rule, and ended in 1871 when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Some of the terre irredente did not, however, join the Kingdom of Italy until after World War I with the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Some nationalists see the November 3, 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti as the end of unification.The Risorgimento was an ideological and literary movement that helped to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people, and it led to a series of political events that freed the Italian states from foreign domination and united them politically. Although the Risorgimento has attained the status of a national myth, its essential meaning remains a controversial question. The classic interpretation (expressed in the writings of the philosopher Benedetto Croce) sees the Risorgimento as the triumph of liberalism, but more recent views criticize it as an aristocratic and bourgeois revolution that failed to include the masses.
The main impetus to the Risorgimento came from reforms introduced by the French when they dominated Italy during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1796–1815). A number of Italian states were briefly consolidated, first as republics and then as satellite states of the French empire, and, even more importantly, the Italian middle class grew in numbers and was allowed to participate in government.
After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Italian states were restored to their former rulers. Under the domination of Austria, these states took on a conservative character. Secret societies such as the Carbonari opposed this development in the 1820s and ’30s. The first avowedly republican and national group was Young Italy, founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1831. This society, which represented the democratic aspect of the Risorgimento, hoped to educate the Italian people to a sense of their nationhood and to encourage the masses to rise against the existing reactionary regimes. Other groups, such as the Neo-Guelfs, envisioned an Italian confederation headed by the pope; still others favoured unification under the house of Savoy, monarchs of the liberal northern Italian state of Piedmont-Sardinia.
After the failure of liberal and republican revolutions in 1848, leadership passed to Piedmont. With French help, the Piedmontese defeated the Austrians in 1859 and united most of Italy under their rule by 1861. The annexation of Venetia in 1866 and papal Rome in 1870 marked the final unification of Italy and hence the end of the Risorgimento.
Anniversary of Risorgimento
Italy celebrates the Anniversary of Risorgimento every fifty years, on March 17 (date of proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy).The anniversary occurred in 1911 (50th), 1961 (100th) and 2011 (150th) with several celebrations throughout the country.