Manon Lescaut (Torino, Teatro Regio, February 1893), La Bohème (Turin, Teatro Regio, February
1896), Tosca (Rome, Teatro Costanzi, January 1900), and Madama Butterfly (Brescia, Teatro Grande,
May 1904), The Maid of the West. With these works Giacomo Puccini became the Master. His
works were represented in Europe and America. Until the unfinished Turandot, posthumous and
finished by Franco Alfano in 1926, who established himself on the international scene with the same success
of the other works. The Master knew how to combine the legacy of the nineteenth century, conferring
originality and a strong communicative sense. With the same enthusiasm and eclecticism he was able to touch everyone
the genres, from dramatic to mystical to comic, but its peculiarities remained those of the lyric
Idyll, nostalgia, the little life of two and death were the focus of his artistic work.
Far from nationalism and able to amalgamate different languages and musical cultures, he always had
the ability to attract public admiration, not as much as the critics, especially Italian,
who looked at him for a long time with suspicion and sometimes with hostility, coming to one of his
re-evaluation only in a later historical phase. The Puccinian intensity reached its highest points in its
expressive and personal melodic recitative, remained unmatched and without heirs . To ninety years from his
disappearance, not by chance, the Master and his works continue to fill with glory the theaters of all
world. The coin depicts the face of the master Giacomo Puccini surrounded by the inscription G.
Puccini the year of issue and the words SAN MARINO.