Flag of Italy

Quick Facts: Who was Flag of Italy?

Subject:

Flag of Italy

Known for:

The Italian Tricolour: Green, White, and Red vertical stripes symbolizing nationhood.

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Origins & Early Life

The national flag of Italy, often referred to as the Tricolour (il Tricolore, Italian: [il trikoˈloːre]), is a flag featuring three equally sized vertical pales of green, white and red, with the green at the hoist side, as defined by Article 12 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic. The Italian law regulates its use and display, protecting its defence and providing for the crime of insulting it; it also prescribes its teaching in Italian schools together with other national symbols of Italy. The Italian Flag Day named Tricolour Day was established by law n. 671 of 31 December 1996, and is held every year on 7 January. This celebration commemorates the first official adoption of the tricolour as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister republic of Revolutionary France, which took place in Reggio Emilia on 7 January 1797, on the basis of the events following the French Revolution (1789–1799) which, among its ideals, advocated national self-determination.

Career & Major Achievements

The Italian national colours appeared for the first time in Genoa on a tricolour cockade on 21 August 1789, anticipating by seven years the first green, white and red Italian military war flag, which was adopted by the Lombard Legion in Milan on 11 October 1796. After 7 January 1797, popular support for the Italian flag grew steadily, until it became one of the most important symbols of Italian unification, which culminated on 17 March 1861 with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, of which the tricolour became the national flag. Following its adoption, the tricolour became one of the most recognisable and defining features of united Italian statehood in the following two centuries of the history of Italy. The Italian tricolour, like other tricolour flags, is inspired by the French one, introduced by the revolution in 1790 on French Navy warships, and is symbolic of the renewal perpetrated by the origins of Jacobinism. Shortly after the French revolutionary events, the ideals of social innovation began to spread widely on the basis of the advocacy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, including in Italy, and subsequently political innovation with the first patriotic ferments addressed to the national self-determination that later led to the Italian unification on the Italian Peninsula.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

For this reason, the French blue, white and red flag became the first reference of the Italian Jacobins and subsequently a source of inspiration for the creation of an Italian identity flag. On 12 July 1789, two days before the storming of the Bastille, the revolutionary journalist Camille Desmoulins, while hailing the Parisian crowd to revolt, asked the protesters what colour to adopt as a symbol of the French Revolution, proposing green, a symbol of hope or the blue of the American Revolution, a symbol of freedom and democracy. The protesters replied "The green! We want green cockades!" Desmoulins then seized a green leaf from the ground and pointed it to the hat as a distinctive sign of the revolutionaries. The green, in the primitive French cockade, was immediately abandoned in favour of blue and red, the ancient colours of Paris, because it was also the colour of the king's brother, Count of Artois, who became monarch after the First Restoration with the name of Charles X of France.

Chronological Milestones & Life Events

1. 1789: 1789 Milestone — The Italian national colours appeared for the first time in Genoa on a tricolour cockade on 21 August 1789, anticipating by seven years the first green, white and red Italian military war flag, which was adopted by the Lombard Legion in Milan on 11 October 1796.
2. 1790: 1790 Milestone — The Italian tricolour, like other tricolour flags, is inspired by the French one, introduced by the revolution in 1790 on French Navy warships, and is symbolic of the renewal perpetrated by the origins of Jacobinism.
3. 1797: 1797 Milestone — This celebration commemorates the first official adoption of the tricolour as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister republic of Revolutionary France, which took place in Reggio Emilia on 7 January 1797, on the basis of the events following the French Revolution (1789–1799) which, among its ideals, advocated national self-determination.
4. 1996: 1996 Milestone — 671 of 31 December 1996, and is held every year on 7 January.

Historical Fact-Check Quiz: Flag of Italy

True or False: “Did the initial adoption of the green, white, and red tricolour as a national symbol occur during the period immediately following the French Revolution?”

Answer (TRUE ⭕): The first documented use of Italian national colours is dated to 21 August 1789 in Genoa, anticipating later official adoptions.

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