Today, January 7, the "National Flag Day", O "Feast of the Tricolor”. The official celebrations take place in Reggio Emilia, the city where the white-red-green banner was adopted for the first time by a state. It was the year 1797 and the State in question was the Cispadana Republic, the first of the "sister republics" (or "Jacobin") born on the peninsula during Napoleon's Italian campaign. The "Festa del Tricolore" was in fact established with the law 671 of 31 December 1996, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the birth of the flag.
But why white, red and green? As the Quirinale explains on its website, almost all the Jacobin republics adopted flags characterized by three vertical bands of equal size, clearly inspired by the French model of 1790. Even the military departments that flanked Bonaparte's army had banners of this type. In particular, that of Lombard Legion it was white, red and green, three colors rooted in the collective heritage of that region: white and red appeared in the ancient municipal coat of arms of Milan (red cross on a white field), while the uniforms of the Milanese Civic Guard were greens since the 1782.
Later, the same colors were also adopted by Italian Legion, which gathered the soldiers of Emilia and Romagna, and in all probability it was for this reason that the Cispadana Republic he chose them for his flag.
Of course, the original flag was not identical to the one we know today. Not only the three bands were horizontal, but in the center there was the coat of arms of the Republic: a case containing four arrows, surrounded by laurel and adorned with weapons.
In the 30 years following the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), the tricolor was canceled by the Restoration, but continued to be raised as a symbol of freedom on various occasions: the uprisings of 1831, the Mazzinian revolts, the feat of the Bandiera brothers and the uprisings in the States of the Church.
After that, on March 23rd 1848, Carlo Alberto announced the first war of independence to the populations of Lombardo Veneto closing the proclamation with these words:
“To better demonstrate with outward signs the sentiment of the Italian union, we want Our Troops to bring the Shield of Savoy superimposed on the Italian tricolor flag".
The same flag was officially adopted on March 17, 1861, with the proclamation of Kingdom of Italy, and remained so for over 80 years.
The current appearance of the tricolor came only with the Republic and with the famous article 12 of the Constitution:
"The flag of the Republic is the Italian tricolor: green, white and red, with three vertical bands of equal size".
