Euro Banknotes © MoneyMuseum

A banknote is the ambassador of its country. It reflects the identity of the country, it represents its ethical and cultural values. That has to apply also to the Euro banknotes. Though Europe is an entity in which many different cultures try to cope with each other, but these cultures have a history of more than 2,000 years. That has to be documented on the Euro banknotes.

But what do the Euro banknotes reflect? Have you ever carefully looked at one? Besides a map of Europe and a flag, there are bridges and some other platitudinous elements. The design was chosen because the commonplace does not pose any political problems. Read more about the image of the European Union that will be represented by the Euro banknotes here ...

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The euro banknotes

The Council of Europe agreed on a common flag already in 1986 and wrote: "The number twelve is unchangeable, since it is the symbol for perfection and unity (e.g. the 12 apostles, the sons of Jacob, the legendary deeds of Hercules, the months of a year)." The number 12 supposedly also stands for the twelve member states of the European Union where the euro will be introduced on January 1, 2002. 4,000 years ago the number twelve was already used in Mesopotamia. The EU thus wanted to underline the fact that its roots go back far in time.

Windows and gateways on the obverse of each banknote symbolize the spirit of openness and cooperation in the EU; the reverse of the bills feature bridges as metaphors for communication among the peoples of Europe. The layout of the euro banknotes appears to be a mentally beautiful vision, vague enough not to stir up any political conflict. In turn, it stirs up the question: is this a commonly shared vision or only wishful thinking of politicians?

The name of the currency is shown in both the Latin (EURO) and the Greek (EYPΩ) alphabets, reflecting the Roman and Greek roots of the European culture. In total, a volume of 14.5 billion such banknotes will be printed.

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5 and 10 euro 2002

The 5-euro bill depicts a Roman aqueduct strongly resembling the Pont du Gard in Nîmes, France. The Pont du Gard was built about 19 BC to lead water into the town of Nîmes. The 10-euro bill shows an archway in Romanesque style from the epoch of the High Middle Ages.

The banknotes are the work of the Austrian designer Robert Kalina. Kalina claims to have distorted the pictures of famous European buildings on his computer. He did not want so show a specific construction, he said, but the entire European building history. Nevertheless many Europeans may ask themselves where the bridge represented on the 10-euro note could be situated.

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20 and 50 euro 2002

The 20-euro bill is committed to Gothic style, as the windows with their pointed arches on the obverse show. On the 50-euro note, on the other hand, we see another Roman bridge. It looks like the Italian Ponte Sant'Angelo, an ancient Roman bridge, probably the finest surviving in Rome itself, built over the Tiber by Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) to connect the Campus Martius with his mausoleum (later renamed Castel Sant'Angelo).

The Austrian designer Robert Kalina won the contest in which historical portraits were disallowed to avoid petty political jealousies. While most of his competitors worked with anonymous portraits, he decided to show bridges and windows rather than faces. That is how he won.

With an edition of 3.6 billion issues, the 50-euro banknote will be the most widely distributed of all bills, followed by the 20-euro note.

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100 and 200 euro 2002

The bridge on the 100-euro note is of ancient Roman origin. The Romans began organized bridge building to help their military campaigns. Engineers and skilled workmen formed guilds that were dispatched throughout the empire, to spread and exchange building ideas and principles. Roman bridges are famous for using the circular arch form, which allow for spans much longer than stone beams and for bridges of more permanence than wood. The 200-euro note, however, shows a railway bridge from the beginnings of the 20th century.

Robert Kalina, the designer of the Austrian National Bank, had the idea to focus Europe's shared building history rather than on unwelcome national emblems – for which there would not have been enough space on seven banknotes anyway. Roman bridges are fairly over-represented on the euro banknotes; whether that is because of their simple yet effective construction, or for the strong influence of the ancient Roman culture on Europe?

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500 euro 2002

The 500-euro note finally shows a modern bridge and construction elements of our time. Primitive people already constructed suspension bridges by using vines for cables and mounting the roadway directly on the cables. But failures resulted from storms, heavy snows, and droves of cattle. Credit for solving the problem belongs principally to John August Roebling, a German-born US engineer who added a web truss to either side of his roadways and produced a structure so rigid that he successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, the Ohio River at Cincinnati, and, finally, in his masterpiece, the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan at New York City. That vision, to bridge differing economic regions by means of a modern construction, has been selected for the highest denomination of the euro banknotes.

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