Released 7/23/2000

1927 5 lira Italy The obverse has Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947), king of Italy (1900-1946) and self-styled emperor of Ethiopia (1936-1944) and king of Albania (1939-1944), born in Naples. He became king of Italy in 1900 on the assassination of his father, King Humbert I. His reign was undistinguished until 1915, when Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allied powers. He spent most of the next three years on active duty at the front in northern Italy. In 1922, following the collapse of parliamentary government, Victor Emmanuel, to avert civil war, accepted the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Thereafter his authority was largely nominal. In 1929, by the provisions of the Lateran Treaty, Vatican City was recognized as a sovereign state. With Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-1936  and his seizure of Albania in 1939, Victor Emmanuel acquired new titles. In 1946, after World War II, because of Italian anti-Fascist and Allied pressure, Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favor of his son, who became king for a month as Humbert II. Victor Emmanuel lived in exile in Portugal and Egypt until his death. The obverse has the fascist symbols. The term fascism was first used by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1919. The term comes from the Italian word fascio, which means "union" or "league." It also refers to the ancient Roman symbol of power, the fasces, a bundle of sticks bound to an ax, which represented civic unity and the authority of Roman officials to punish wrongdoers.