National colours of Italy

Dante and Beatrice by Carl Oesterley (1845), represented as described by Dante in canto XXX of the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy. On the left, we can see Beatrice's green, white and red dress

Often in historical research aimed at studying the origin of the Italian tricolour we have considered the hypothesis that green, white and red have been used as national colours since medieval times, thus wanting to trace the creation of the Italian tricolour to remote epochs: in reality these conjectures on the origin of the colours, which would link the presumed medieval tricolour to that born in the Napoleonic era, are historically to be rejected, given the total absence of sources that prove this link.[3]

In the Middle Ages the three colours were forcibly recognized in some events of history of Italy, such as on the flagpole of the Carroccio during the battle of Legnano, on the banners of the Tuscan Guelphs, whose coat of arms was formed by a red eagle on a white field above a green snake, blazon that was granted by Pope Clement IV,[4] on the sign of the Sienese contrada of the Goose, on the tricolour uniforms of the servants of the Duchess of Milan Valentina Visconti; in Renaissance times the Italian national colours were imagined on the carpets that welcomed Renée of France, who then married Ercole I d'Este, upon her arrival in Ferrara, on the tricolour uniforms of the Borso d'Este army and on the green flag , white and red that began to enshrine from the Cathedral of Milan on the occasion of the entry into the Milanese capital of Francis I of France after his victory in the battle of Marignano.[3][5][6]

Other scholars have suggested the prefiguration of the Italian tricolour in pictorial works; in fact the clothes of some characters painted on the walls of Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, which date back to the Middle Ages, are green, white and red.[7] Also these hypotheses, based this time on artistic representations, are to be discarded because they are not based on historical findings.[7] The reason for the historical inconsistency of the hypothetical presence of the tricolour in historical events and artistic works prior to the modern era lies in the fact that at the time the Italian national awareness, which appeared centuries later, had not yet occurred.[8]

The three colours of the Italian flag are cited, in literature, in some verses of canto XXX of the Purgatorio in the Divine Comedy, and this has fueled theories that would like the birth of the tricolour connected to Dante Alighieri: they too are considered groundless by scholars,[9] as Dante in these verses he did not think of a politically united Italy, but of the theological virtues, or rather of charity, hope and faith, with the last two being metaphorically symbolized in the Italian flag.[10]

Panorama of Genoa in the early 19th century. Here the Italian tricolour cockade first appeared, and with it the Italian national colours

The national cockade of Italy, on which the three Italian national colours made their debut in 1789

The tricolore was symbolically important preceding and throughout the Risorgimento leading to Italian unification.

The first documented trace of the use of Italian national colours 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.[2] 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, reporting the news that the French tricolour was green, white and red.[11] The green was then maintained by the Italian Jacobins because it represented nature and therefore - metaphorically - also natural rights, or social equality and freedom.[12]

In September 1794, Luigi Zamboni and Giambattista de Rolandis created a cockade by uniting the white and red of the flag of Bologna with green, a symbol of liberty and hope that the populace of Italy join the revolution begun in Bologna to oust the foreign occupying forces.[13][14] This tricolore was considered a symbol of redemption that from its creation was "consecrated to immortality of the triumph of faith, virtue, and sacrifice" of those who created it.[15]

Flag of the Cispadane Republic, established on 7 January 1797. It was the first Italian tricolour flag

Napoleon Bonaparte, in a letter from Milan to an executive director on 11 October 1796, stated that the Legione Lombarda had chosen these colours as the national colours.[16] In a solemn ceremony at the Piazza del Duomo on 16 November 1796, a military flag was presented to the Legione Lombarda, which would become a unit in the Cisalpine Republic (1797–1802) military, and was the first tricolore military standard to fly at the head of an Italian military unit.[17][18] The first official Italian flag of an Italian sovereign state was created for the Cispadane Republic (1796–1797) in Reggio Emilia on 7 January 1797 based on a proposal by government deputy Giuseppe Compagnoni.[19][14]

The formation of the Cisalpine Republic was decreed by Napoleon on 29 June 1797, and consisted of most of the Cispadane Republic and Transpadane Republic (1796–1797), which included between them Milan, Mantua, the portion of Parma north of the Po river, Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, and later the Venetian Republic.[20] Its flag was proclaimed to be the tricolore, representing the "red and white of Bologna and the green of liberty".[21]

Young Italy, a political movement founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini calling for a national revolution to unify all Italian-speaking provinces, used a "theatrical" uniform based on the national colours.[22] These colours had been in use in the Cispadane Republic, Transpadane Republic, Cisalpine Republic, Italian Republic (1802–1805), and the Kingdom of Italy (1805–1814), precursors to the modern state. During the formation of the Roman Empire of 1814, the foundational constitutional basis specified that the three national colours would be preserved.[23]

The departure of the Mille expedition

The colours have been used for political purposes.

During his visit to London on 11 April 1864, Giuseppe Garibaldi was greeted by a throng of people at the train station, many of whom carried Italian flags.[24] English men dressed in red shirts commonly worn by Garibaldi's followers during his Mille expedition to southern Italy, and women dressed in the national colours of Italy.[24] Italian flags could be seen throughout the city.[24] In 1848, Garibaldi's legion dressed in red shirts with green and white facing.[25]

In 1868, two years after the Austrians departed Venice following the Third Italian War of Independence, the remains of statesman Daniele Manin were brought to his native city and honoured with a public funeral.[26] He had been acclaimed president of the Venetian Republic of San Marco by residents of Venice after a revolt in 1848.[27][28] The gondola carrying his coffin was decorated with bow "surmounted by the lion of Saint Mark, resplendent with gold", bore "the Venetian standard veiled with black crape", and had "two silver colossal statues waving the national colours of Italy".[29] The statues represented the unification of Italy and Venice.[30] The funeral procession was described as "magnificent".[30] His remains are interred at the Basilica of Santa Croce, the first person buried there in over 300 years.[26]

An apocryphal story about the history of pizza holds that on 11 June 1889, Neapolitan pizzamaker Raffaele Esposito created a pizza to honour Margherita of Savoy, who was visiting the city. It was garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil to represent the national colours of Italy, and was named "Pizza Margherita".[31][32][33]

The Frecce Tricolori, with green, white, and red smoke trails, above the Estense Castle, Ferrara, Italy

The national colours are specified in the Constitution of Italy to be used on the Flag of Italy, a vertical tricolour flag of green, white, and red.[40][41] It is also used on the cockade, another of the national symbols of Italy. Its use of the national colours was the antecedent for its use in the flag.[42][43][44]

The Presidential Standard of Italy is the flag used by the President of the Italian Republic, the nation's head of state. It is based on the square flag of the Napoleonic Italian Republic, on a field of blue charged with the coat of arms of Italy in gold.[45]

On 31 December 1996, legislation was passed (legge no. 671) instituting 7 January as national flag day, known as Festa del Tricolore, and was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana three days later.[46] Its purpose was to celebrate the bicentennial of the establishment of the Italian flag on 7 January 1797.[14] The most important of these celebrations is that at the Sala del Tricolore ("Room of the tricolour") in the commune palace of Reggio Emilia, and a solemn changing of the guard at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, followed by a parade of the Corazzieri and a brass band fanfare by the Carabinieri Cavalry Regiment.[14]

The Frecce Tricolori, the aerobatics demonstration team of the Italian Aeronautica Militare based at Rivolto Air Force Base, are so named for the green, white, and red smoke trails emitted during performances, representing the national colours.[47][48]

The scudetto is worn on jerseys by the Italian sports clubs that win the annual championship of their respective sport in the previous season

In football, the winners of Serie A are the Italian football champions, which entitles the winning team to adorn the jersey of each of its players with the scudetto, an escutcheon (heater shield) of the Italian flag, the subsequent season.[49]

The practice was established in 1924 (first ever team to wear it was Genoa C.F.C.), after Gabriele D'Annunzio had wanted to put a shield flag on the uniforms of Italian military commanders during a friendly match.[49] Since then, the scudetto has become the symbol of the defending champions of every sports league in Italy.

The league operators state that it is "representative of national unity at the level of football".[50] The winner of the Coppa Italia is entitled to adorn its team jersey with a tricolour cockade for the subsequent season.[51]

The name of Italia Peak, a peak in the Elk Mountains of Colorado in the United States, is derived from the display on one of its faces, when seen at a distance, of "brilliant red, white and green colours, the national colours of Italy".[52][53][54]

With the unification of Italy, and with the consequent extension of the Albertine Statute to the whole Italian peninsula, to the green, to the white and to the red, a fourth national colour was added, the Savoy blue, a distinctive chromatic tonality of the Italian ruling family, the House of Savoy; in particular, in the institutional sphere, it was included in the flag of the Kingdom of Italy on the contour of the royal coat of arms to prevent the cross and the field of the shield from being confused with the white and with the red of the banner.[58]

The Italian national football team

The origin of the colour is dated 20 June 1366, when Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, about to leave for a crusade called by Pope Urban V which was intended to help the Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos, cousin of the maternal part of the Savoy Count, decided to place on the flagship of the fleet, a galley of Republic of Venice, a blue flag that fluttered next to the red-crusading silver banner of the Savoys.[67]

The colour therefore has a Marian implication, bearing in mind that there is also the possibility that the use of a blue banner by the Savoys started earlier.[68]

The Italian national colours, in the shape of an Italian flag and the Standard of the President of the Italian Republic, on the presidential Lancia Flaminia. Their presence indicates that the president is on board

The Savoy blue has been preserved in some institutional contexts even after the birth of the Italian Republic: in fact this is the edge of the Presidential Standard of Italy (blue, in heraldry, means "law" and "command") and is the dominant colour of the institutional flags of some important public offices (President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, Minister and Undersecretaries of Defense, high military ranks Navy and Air Force). The Savoy blue border on Presidential Standard of Italy symbolize the four Italian armed forces, namely the Italian Air Force, the Carabinieri, the Italian Army and the Italian Navy, of which the President is the commander.[69]

The blue shade of the Savoy blue colour, already in use on military cockades, on the ties of the flags and on the bands of the Savoy officers, still continues to appear as one of Italy's reference and recognition colours, so much so that it has become the shade used on the Italian national sports shirts, on the blue scarf supplied to the officers of the Italian armed forces, on the distinctive band of the presidents of the Italian provinces[70][71] and on the aircraft used by the Frecce Tricolori, also traditions that have never stopped even on the occasion of the birth of the Italian Republic.[72]

After having played its first two international matches in white in 1910, the men's football team announced its new uniform on 31 December 1910, an azure shirt with an escutcheon of the Italian colours, and white shorts.[73] The blue shirt was first worn on 6 January 1911 in a match against Hungary in Milan.[74] Even this case, the blue has been maintained despite the abolition of the Italian monarchy.[75]

In sport, many men's national teams are known as the azzurri and women's teams as the azzurre (meaning "azure"). These include the men's basketball,[76] men's football, men's ice hockey, men's rugby league, men's rugby union, and men's volleyball[77] teams, and the women's basketball,[78] women's football, women's ice hockey, and women's volleyball[79] teams.

Ferrari SF15-T, fielded in the 2015 Formula One season

The national auto racing colour of Italy is rosso corsa ("racing red").[80] Since the 1920s Italian race cars of Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lancia, and later Ferrari and Abarth have been painted in rosso corsa ("racing red"). This was the customary national racing colour of Italy as recommended between the world wars by the organisations that later became the FIA. In that scheme of international auto racing colours French cars were blue (Bleu de France), British cars were green (British racing green), etc.

In Formula One, the colour was not determined by the country the car was made in nor by the nationality of the driver(s) but by the nationality of the team entering the vehicle. National colours were mostly replaced in Formula One by commercial sponsor liveries in 1968, but unlike most other teams, Ferrari always kept the traditional red but the shade of the colour varies.

Red cars are also traditional in Alfa Romeo and Ferrari car running in other motorsport championships, such as Supertouring championships in the former and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona in the latter. In contrast, since the 2000s Maserati has been using white and blue and Abarth has been using white with red flashes. Rosso Corsa is also an extremely popular colour choice for Ferrari road cars, nearly 80% of all Ferraris sold are in the colour.

In sports such as cycling and winter sports, the jerseys of the Italian athletes are often white.