The flag of Italy, commonly known as Il Tricolore, consists of three equal vertical bands of green, white and red. Its history reaches back to the revolutionary and Napoleonic era of the late eighteenth century and became closely tied to the movement for Italian unification.
What does the Italian flag look like?
Italy’s flag has three vertical bands of equal size: green at the hoist, white in the centre and red at the fly. Article 12 of the Italian Constitution defines the flag as the Italian tricolour in green, white and red, arranged in three vertical bands of equal dimensions.
Origins of the Italian tricolour
The Presidency of the Italian Republic traces the birth of the Italian tricolour as a national flag to 7 January 1797 in Reggio Emilia. On that date, the parliament of the Cispadane Republic adopted a green, white and red flag following a proposal by deputy Giuseppe Compagnoni.
The three-colour format reflected the revolutionary flag tradition spreading through Europe at the time. The Italian Presidency also notes that white and red were connected with Milan’s historic civic arms, while green had been used in the uniforms of Milan’s Civic Guard.
The tricolour and Italian unification
During the nineteenth-century Risorgimento, the tricolour increasingly became a symbol of national independence and unity. When the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861, a version of the tricolour bearing the arms of the House of Savoy served as the state flag. After the monarchy ended in 1946, the dynastic shield was removed.
What do green, white and red mean?
Many popular explanations associate green with the landscape, white with the Alps and red with sacrifice, while religious interpretations have also been proposed. These are later symbolic readings rather than the historical reason the colours were originally selected. The documented origins are linked to the political and military context of northern Italy in the 1790s.
Italy flag facts
- Common name: Il Tricolore
- Colors: green, white and red
- Design: three equal vertical bands
- Historic national adoption: 7 January 1797 by the Cispadane Republic
- Republican form: used without the Savoy arms after 1946
- Flag Day: 7 January
Source
Primary reference: Presidency of the Italian Republic — The Italian Tricolour Flag.
