History of the flagpole and the flag in Italy

The history of the flagpole in Italy is bound up with that of the Tricolore: from the first green, white and red flag of 1797 to the flags of the ships, down to the staffs on the façades of today's town halls. This guide traces the main stages, based on the publications of the State Ceremonial Office and the Italian Navy.

From the sea to the land

For centuries the pennone was above all part of a ship: in Italian naval usage the word still means the yard of a mast, from which the sail is set. At sea the flag identified the nationality and allowed signals to be exchanged. On land, flags and standards were carried in battle, in processions and at civic ceremonies, like the gonfalons of the medieval communes, from which the gonfalons of today's local authorities descend.

1797: the birth of the Tricolore

According to the Italian Navy, between the end of 1796 and the beginning of 1797 the congress of the representatives of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena and Reggio met in Reggio Emilia. On 7 January 1797, in the room of the town hall that now bears the name Sala del Tricolore, the Parliament of the Cispadane Republic adopted the green, white and red flag, with horizontal bands. The Cisalpine Republic adopted the tricolour with vertical bands shortly afterwards.

In 1802 the flag of the Italian Republic was changed into a red cloth with a white lozenge and a green rectangle, and it kept this form under the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy from 1805. After the Restoration the Tricolore became the symbol of a denied nationhood and reappeared in the uprisings of 1821, 1831 and the years that followed.

1848–1861: from the Kingdom of Sardinia to the Kingdom of Italy

On 23 March 1848 Charles Albert of Savoy, going to war against Austria, chose for his troops the Tricolore with the Savoy shield in the centre. On 11 April of the same year a decree extended the flag to warships and the merchant navy, with a crown above the shield for warships. In 1861 the Tricolore with the Savoy shield became the flag of the Kingdom of Italy.

1946–1948: the Republic

After the referendum of 2 June 1946, legislative decree no. 1 of 19 June 1946 provided that the national flag consisted of a rectangular cloth divided vertically into three equal sections, green, white and red, two thirds as high as it is long, without the shield. Article 12 of the Constitution, in force from 1948, confirmed the Tricolore as the flag of the Republic. On 9 November 1947 the new naval ensign was established, with the arms of the maritime republics.

From the laws of 1923 to the regulation of 2000

For much of the twentieth century the use of the flag was governed by royal decree-law no. 2072 of 24 September 1923, and the display of foreign flags by Law no. 1085 of 24 June 1929. Law no. 22/1998 and D.P.R. no. 121/2000 replaced them, introducing the joint display of the Tricolore and the European flag on public buildings. Since then the façades of town halls, prefectures and schools almost always show two or three staffs side by side.

The flagpole today

Today the flags on public buildings are flown mostly on balcony staffs and on ground-mounted poles of aluminium or steel. On the Quirinale, according to the State Ceremonial Office, the Tricolore and the European flag are flown from the central balcony and from the tower, alongside the standard of the President of the Republic. The types of flagpoles are described in the guide to types of flagpoles, and the meaning of the colours in the guide to flag symbolism.