Cockade of Italy

The Phrygian cap with a French tricolor cockade, symbols of the Revolution

During the French revolution, the red, white and blue tricolor cockade was adopted, among other symbols, which contributed to the affirmation of the three colors on the heraldic symbols of the French nobles, becoming synonymous with change; for some years, all over Europe, those who wore a cockade were therefore viewed with great suspicion. Later the meaning of change assigned to the French tricolor cockade crossed the Alps and arrived in Italy together with the use of the cockade and all the baggage of values of the French revolution, which were perpetrated by the Jacobinism of the origins, including the ideals of social renewal - on the basis of the advocacy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 - and subsequently also political, with the first patriotic ferments directed at national self-determination which subsequently led, on the Italian peninsula, to the Risorgimento.[11][12][13]

Camille Desmoulins, who invented the French tricolor cockade

The first sporadic demonstrations in favor of the ideals of the French revolution, by the Italian population, took place in August 1789 with the appearance, especially in the Papal States, of cockades of makeshift constituted by simple green leaves of trees, which were pinned on the clothes of the protesters recalling similar protests in France at the dawn of the revolution shortly before the adoption of the blue, white and red tricolor.[14] 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 color to adopt as a symbol of the French revolution, proposing the green hope or the blue of the American revolution, symbol of freedom and democracy: the protesters replied "The green! The green! We want green cockades!"[15] Desmoulins then seized a green leaf from the ground and pointed it to the hat as a distinctive sign of the revolutionaries.[15]

The green, in the primitive French cockade, was immediately abandoned in favor of blue and red, or the ancient colors of Paris, because it was also the color of the king's brother, Count of Artois, who became monarch after the First Restoration with the name of Charles X of France.[16] The French tricolor cockade was then completed on 17 July 1789 with the addition of white, the color of the House of Bourbon, in deference to King Louis XVI of France, who was still ruling despite the violent revolts that raged in the country: the French monarchy was in fact abolished later, on 10 August 1792.

Later the Italian population began to use real cockades made of cloth: the green of the leaves of the trees already used previously, were added white and red so as to recall in a more marked way the revolutionary ideals represented by the French tricolor.[17] The first documented trace of the use of Italian national colors is dated 21 August 1789: in the historical archives of the Republic of Genoa it is reported that eyewitnesses had seen some demonstrators pinned on their clothes hanging a red, white and green cockade on their clothes.[3]

The Italian gazettes of the time had in fact created confusion about the facts of French revolution, especially on the replacement of green with blue and red, reporting the news that the French tricolor was green, white and red.[17] The green was then maintained by the Italian Jacobins because it represented nature and therefore - metaphorically - also natural rights, or social equality and freedom.[18]

The three Italian national colors carved on the floor of the Palazzo delle Poste in Florence. After their appearance in Genoa on 21 August 1789, red, white and green gradually became part of the Italian collective imagination until they were represented in the most varied areas

Later the green, white and red cockade always spread to a greater extent, gradually becoming the only ornament used in Italy by the rioters.[14] The patriots began to call it "Italian cockade" making it become one of the symbols of the country.[14] In fact, the error of journalistic headings on the colors of the French tricolor cockade was clarified, and consequently the connotations of uniqueness were assumed, green, white and red were adopted by the Risorgimento patriots as one of the most important symbols of the insurrectional and political struggle, aimed at completing the national unit taking the name of "Italian tricolor".[14] The green, white and red tricolor thus acquired a strong patriotic value, becoming one of the symbols of national awareness, a change that gradually led it to enter the collective imagination of the Italians.[14]

The Italian tricolor cockade, as well as all the similar ornaments made in the same period also in other countries, had as its main characteristic that it could be clearly visible, thus giving way to unequivocally identify the political ideas of the person who wore it, as well as to be, if necessary, better hidden than, for example, a flag.[19]

The use of the Italian tricolor was not limited to the presence of green, white and red in a cockade: the latter, having been born on 21 August 1789, heralded by seven years the first tricolor war flag, which was chosen by the Lombard Legion on 11 October 1796,[4] which is associated with the first official approval of the Italian national colors by the authorities, in this case Napoleon, and eight years the adoption of the flag of Italy, which was born on 7 January 1797, when it first assumed the role of the national banner of a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic.[5]

The subsequent adoption by the Italian patriots of the green, white and red tricolor was immediate, unambiguous and devoid of political contrasts: in France the opposite happened, since the French tricolor was taken as a symbol first by the Republicans and then by the Bonapartists, that they were in antagonism with the Monarchists and the Catholics, who had the royal white flag with the fleur-de-lis of France as their reference flag.[18]

View of Bologna

From a historical perspective, given the judicial process and the clamor that followed, were the tricolor cockades made in 1794 by two students of the University of Bologna, Luigi Zamboni from Bologna and Giovanni Battista De Rolandis from Asti, who placed themselves at the head of an insurrectional attempt to free Bologna from papal rule; in addition to the two students there were also two medical doctors, Antonio Succi and Angelo Sassoli, who then betrayed the patriots by referring everything to the papal police, and four other people (Giuseppe Rizzoli, known as Dozza, Camillo Tomesani, twisted neck, Antonio Forni Mago Sabino and Camillo Galli).[20] Luigi Zamboni had previously expressed the desire to create a tricolor flag that would become the flag of a united Italy.[21]

During this revolt attempt, which took place between 13 and 14 November 1794 (or, according to other sources, 13 December 1794),[21] the demonstrators led by De Rolandis and Zamboni flaunted a red and white cockade (which are also the colors of the municipal coat of arms of Bologna) having a green lining.[21] These cockades were made by Zamboni's parents, who made the tradesmen by trade and then paid dearly for this initiative.[21] These cockades had green in the center, white immediately outside and red on the edge.[1]

During the recruitment work, De Rolandis and Zamboni managed to convince thirty people to participate in their attempt at insurrection [27]. The two, to carry out the attempted revolt, purchased some firearms which later proved to be of poor quality.[21] The goal was to spread a leaflet intended to give rise to Bologna and Castel Bolognese, proclaiming that there was no effect whatsoever.[21]

View of the Giardino della Montagnola in Bologna, where Zamboni and De Rolandis were buried. Their bodies were later dispersed.

After failing to raise the city, the revolutionaries tried to take refuge in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, but the local police first captured them in Covigliaio and then handed them over to the papal authorities; after the capture of the fugitives, the latter launched an action "Super complocta et seditiosa compositione destributa per civitatem in conventicula armata" (a prosecution for fomenting armed treasonous conspiracy throughout the state) at the Tribunale del Torrone (the Inquisition of Bologna). The trial involved all the participants in the insurrectional attempt, the family of Zamboni and the Succi brothers.[22]

Zamboni was found dead in a cell nicknamed "Inferno" ("Hell"), which he shared with two common criminals, probably killed by them on the orders of the police or perhaps suicide after an unsuccessful attempt to escape,[23] on 18 August 1795 (other hypotheses they actually want it to be a murder whose principals are to be found in some senatorial Bolognese families, in the Savioli family in particular).[24]

De Rolandis was publicly executed, after being subjected to interrogation preceded and followed by ferocious torture,[25] on 26 April 1796.[23] Zamboni's father died of heart almost eighty years after suffering terrible torture, while his mother was first whipped through the streets of Bologna and then sentenced to life imprisonment.[23] The other defendants, where they had minor penalties,[22] were freed shortly thereafter by the French, who in the meantime had invaded Emilia driving out the pontiffs.[23] The bodies of De Rolandis and Zamboni were then solemnly buried in Bologna in the Giardino della Montagnola on the direct order of Napoleon,[26] before being dispersed in 1799 with the arrival of the Austrians.[23]

Of the original cockades of Zamboni and De Rolandis, only one has come down to us.[1] The historic cockade, which is owned by the De Rolandis family, has been exhibited for some time in the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in Turin.[1] In 2006, during some renovations, it was transferred to the European Student Museum of the University of Bologna, where it is still preserved.[1]

The tricolor cockade appeared, after the events of Bologna, during Napoleon's entry into Milan, which took place on 15 May 1796.[27] These cockades, having the typical circular shape, possessed red on the outside, green on an intermediate position and white on the center.[28] These ornaments were worn by the rioters even during the religious ceremonies officiated inside the Milan Cathedral as thanks for the arrival of Napoleon, who was seen, at least initially, as a liberator.[27] The tricolor cockades then became one of the official symbols of the Milanese National Guard, which was founded on 20 November 1796, and then spread elsewhere along the Italian peninsula.[18]

The cockade of Italy painted on a North American T-6 Texan

It is tradition, for the highest offices of the Italian State, excluding the President of the Italian Republic, to have pinned on the jacket, during the military parade of the Festa della Repubblica, which is celebrated every 2 June, a tricolor cockade.[32]

On the Italian planes used during the First World War, with the use of coloring the underside of the lower wing with green, white and red sections for the recognition of the nationality, in 1917, they began to appear on the fuselages and on the wings of the tricolor circular cockades which, in some cases, had the green perimeter and the red central disk, therefore with a position of the colors which was the inverse of that conventionally used then for the Italian tricolor cockade.

Gianni Rivera, soccer player of A.C. Milan, with the cockade of Italy, in an image of the early seventies of the 20th century

The Italian tricolor cockade was used, on the airplanes, in a discontinuous way, until 1927, when it was replaced by a rosette depicting the lictor's fasces, one of the most identifying symbols of fascism.[33] In aeronautics the tricolor cockade with the red towards the outside and the green at the center is back in use, without being changed, in 1943, during the World War II,[34] on the occasion of the constitution of the Italian Co-belligerent Air Force: after the fall of fascism in Italy, there was in fact the immediate disappearance of all the symbols linked to it, including the lictor's fasces.[34]

The tricolor cockade, which was then widely used on all Italian state aircraft, not only military,[35] is still today one of the symbols of the Italian Air Force.[36]

In Italian sport, following a tradition born in football in the late fifties of the 20th century[37] (and reflecting the praxis of the scudetto, which debuted on the Genoa C.F.C. jerseys in the 1924-1925 season based on an idea by Gabriele D'Annunzio,[38]) the tricolor cockade has become the distinctive symbol of the successes in the national cups, sewn on the jersey of the team holding the trophy: the winning formations in the various Italian Cups can in fact show off the cockade on their uniforms for the entire season following the victory.

The Italian tricolor cockade made its debut in football in the 1958-1959 season on S.S. Lazio shirts.[39] In football, starting from the 1985-1986 season, the cockade used for the teams holding the Coppa Italia underwent a change: the version with the inverted colors began to be used, that is with the green outside and the red in the center. From the 2006-2007 season the original typology was restored, the one used by Zamboni and De Rolandis in 1794 during the revolt attempt in Bologna, with the red outside and the green in the center. In football, the cockade is also a symbol of the victories in the Coppa Italia Serie D, in the Coppa Italia Dilettanti and - with substantial stylistic differences - in the Coppa Italia Serie C.[40]