The day of the Italian Flag

Italian Flag clebration in Rome

Rome [ENA] Today is Tricolour Day, the 224th anniversary of the Italian flag . The Italian flag, or 'il Tricolore' is one of the world’s most identifiable flag, because it represents the luxury of made in Italy products. But, also because its trio of green, white, and red is displayed across Italian restaurant signs all over the world and it is printed on the high quality food packaging exported by the manufacturers of the

Peninsula. The Italian flag is an icon of Italy and Italian culture and art. While historians still talk over the significance of colours – green, white and red vertical stripes – they are believed to represent three things from the country. The green is supposed to be a symbol of Italian’s lush landscape. The middle white stripe is thought to represent the snow-capped peaks of the Alps which lie in the north of Italy. Lastly, the red is a symbol of the blood lost in the fight for Italian Independence and Unification.

Anyway, in the Italy of 1796, with the victorious Napoleonic army, almost all the various Jacobin- republics that had succeeded the old absolute States had adopted flags presenting three bands of equal dimensions and of varying colours, which were evidently inspired by the French model of 1790. According to art. 12 of Italian Constitution: “The flag of the Republic is the Italian tricolour: green, white and red, in three vertical bands of equal size”.

The tricolour became Italy’s national flag in Reggio Emilia on January 7th 1797, during the Cispadane Republic founded in 1796 with the protection of the French army, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. The Cispadane Deputy Giuseppe Compagnoni proposed and decreed “that the Cispadane Standard or Flag of Three Colours, Green, White and Red shall become universal and that these three Colours also be used in the Cispadane cockade, which must be worn by everybody”.

So the history of the flag of the Republic of Italy officially began 224 years ago with its first adoption as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadana Republic precisely. The event took place in a hall of the town hall of Reggio nell'Emilia, later called Sala del Tricolore, after the events following the French revolution (1789-1799) which, among its ideals, advocated the self-determination of peoples. Originally designed under Napoleon's rule, the Italian flag was influenced by another “Tricolore”, the French flag.

The emergence of the Italian national colors is dated 21 August 1789, when witnesses saw some demonstrators in Genoa with a green, white and red rosette pinned to their clothes. Later the Italian tricolor became the military banner of the Lombard Legion (11 October 1796), then the civic banner of the congregation of magistrates and deputy deputies of Bologna (18 October 1796) and eventually, as above-mentioned, the national flag of the Cispadana Republic. From 1798 to 1848, the Tricolore was an unofficial symbol of ununified Italian nationalism.

When Napoleon’s rule ended in 1814, a new chapter of Italian history began. During the years 1848-49 (the first Italian war of Independence) and 1859-1861 (the second war of independence and its aftermath) the Tricolore became a celebrated symbol of Italy. So, after the date of January 7, 1797, the popular admiration for the Italian flag grew progressively, until it became one of the most important symbols of the Risorgimento, the 19th century political and social movement which culminated on March 17, 1861 with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, of which the tricolor became the national flag. The tricolor flag has crossed more than two centuries of Italian history, greeting all the most important events.

Italian Flag clebration in Rome

Many regions began adopting flags that reflected elements of the Tricolore, adding to a sense of national unity. On 23 March 1848, the flag was used by Italian troops in battle against the Austrian army, making it an official symbol of Italian confederation. It is illegal to disrespect the Italian flag. Any form of vandalisation or destruction to an Italian flag is considered a crime.