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It is popularly known as “El Tricolour” by the citizens of this nation. The colours of the Italian flag are important to them, and they are proud of them. Former President Silvio Berlusconi attempted to introduce a slight colour change at one point. As a result, it’s not surprising that they rejected the proposal to change the national flag. The Italian flag’s national day is known as Tricolor Day. As the name implies, this day is dedicated to the Flag under the law. On December 31, 1996, this day was established. The fact that the Italian flag has the longest tricolour history is part of the festivities. This broke the record and was officially recognized by Guinness World Records.
The History of the Italian Flag
Hundreds of years ago, the Italian state did not exist. The Apennine Peninsula had various political and economic structures, including city republics and provinces. Each city in ancient Italy had its state emblem, consisting of several different banners and flags. These flags were a herald of the dynasty ruling a particular state.
The colours of the Italian flag, as known to modern people, date back to 1796, during the reign of Napoleon. It can be considered that the French flag has become a kind of pattern for the Italian state symbol. That is why the Italian flag has three vertical stripes compared to the French flag.
Some academics claim that students created the colour scheme of the Italian flag at the University of Bologna. On November 9, 1796, the Lombard Legion, a combination of Italian patriots and Jacobins, received a banner in green-white-red. Subsequently, the soldiers of this army became the base of the Italian National Guard and wore a specific green uniform intersected with white and red elements.
The modern flag of Italy was officially adopted in 1944 (January 19). The primary colours of the flag were green, as a symbol of faith; white, a symbol of hope; and red, representing love. Thus, all three Christian attributes have become the main symbols of the Italian Flag. This is not a coincidence, as historically, Italy was famous for its Catholic culture. This is where the centre of the whole Catholic world is located—the Vatican.
Italy Flag Meaning
There are various theories and interpretations of the meaning of the colours of the Italian Flag. One of them refers to kinship with the French Flag and the fact that the colour green is essentially a natural right (equality and freedom) to reproduce the ideal of revolution.
Another interpretation confirms that each colour refers to personal feelings: green symbolises hope, white represents faith and red for love.
However, for the Italians, that is a bit humdrum. They prefer a more romantic explanation. The most common and widely accepted explanation is that the colours reflect Italy: white for the snow-capped Alps and other mountainous regions, green for the plains and hills, and red for the bloodshed during Italy’s independence struggles. Along with the Flag of the Cisalpine Republic in 1797, the first Italian green-white-red tricolour was born during the Napoleonic era. The first Italian Republic was established when Napoleon declared himself President of Italy in 1802. The flag was changed to a red square with a green square in the centre of a white diamond.
On February 25, 1797, the adjacent Cispadane Republic adopted the same colours in a horizontal arrangement, creating the first legitimate Italian National Flag. The Italian flag, known as Il Tricolore, is tricoloured with vertical stripes. The flag’s three colours are pale green, white, and red. Green is the colour of optimism, white is the colour of trust, and red is the colour of charity. The Italian flag’s three stripes are all the same size.
Giuseppe Compagnoni is the “Father of the Italian Flag” for proposing the green, white, and red Tricolour flag. The Italian Kingdom was established, and the flag used before the war of independence was retained. However, the lack of an ad hoc national flag regulation solely applied to military banners resulted in several arbitrary versions.
Conclusion
On June 19, 1946, a presidential and legislative order provisionally established the new Italian flag, later reaffirmed and inserted into Article 12 of the Constitutional Charter by the Constituent Assembly on March 24, 1947. The generally dry language of the session minutes betrays all of the emotion of the time: “PRESIDENT [Ruini]—”I put the new formula presented by the Commission to the vote: the Republic’s flag is the Italian tricolour: green, white, and red, in vertical strips of equal dimensions.” The audience in the gallery, as well as the assembly, rises to their feet.
