Allegory of Italy as seen by an Italian iconographer Cesare Ripa in his "Iconology" (1593, describes the personifications of abstract concepts): a facing woman seated on a throne wearing a wide mantle and a towered crown over her head. She holds a sceptre in her right hand and the Cornucopia of abundance in the left. Over the crown is the Star of Italy. The allegory is encircled in a band with the coat of arms of the regions of present-day Italy. Name of the engraver below the throne.

Depicts the Italian republic emblem (the Star of Italy above a toothed wheel within a wreath of olive and oak), flanked on the left and on the right by “1946” and “2006”; at the base of the emblem, on the right, the mintmark “R”; below, the coin's value “EURO 5”; arch-shaped “REPUBBLICA ITALIANA”.