Piero Barucci, the Italian Treasury minister who helped steer the country through the 1992 lira crisis, died in Florence on Feb. 26, 2026. He was 92. His cause of death was undisclosed.
Barucci served as minister of the Treasury from 1992 to 1994 under Prime Ministers Giuliano Amato and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. He was in office during the 1992 budget package and a period of financial turmoil that included the lira’s devaluation and Italy’s exit from Europe’s fixed-exchange-rate mechanism amid the currency crisis.
Before entering government, Barucci built a long career in banking and economic policy. He was president of Monte dei Paschi di Siena from 1983 to 1990 and president of the Italian Banking Association (ABI) from 1987 to 1991. He later served as chief executive of Credito Italiano and sat on the board of IRI until its closure.
He also maintained close ties to academia in Florence. A University of Florence graduate in 1959, he taught at the Universities of Siena and Florence and served as dean of Florence’s Faculty of Economics and Commerce. He later completed a seven-year term on Italy’s Competition Authority and, in 1995, published L’Isola Italiana del Tesoro, a memoir of the 1992–1994 emergency. His career spanned public institutions, major financial groups and university life during a pivotal period in Italian economic policy.