Italy’s regional flags

Twenty regions, twenty flags: most put a coat of arms on a plain field, but a few, like Sicily’s trinacria and Sardinia’s four Moors, are centuries old.

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Italy’s regions were written into the 1948 constitution, but most of them only got elected councils in 1970, and many of their flags came even later. The newer ones tend to be a regional coat of arms on a single colour; the older ones carry symbols from the kingdoms and republics that ruled the peninsula before unification.

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The islands

Sicily
The trinacria, a Medusa head with three legs, on red and gold split diagonally.
Sardinia
The four Moors: four heads around a red St George’s cross on white.

The north

Aosta Valley
Plain black and red halves.
Piedmont
The white cross of Savoy on red, with a blue label: the arms of the Princes of Piedmont.
Lombardy
A green Camunian rose on white, from prehistoric rock carvings in the Val Camonica.
Veneto
The winged lion of St Mark, emblem of the old Venetian Republic.
Trentino-Alto Adige
Its arms join the eagles of Trentino and Tyrol.
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
A gold eagle on blue, from the patriarchs of Aquileia who once ruled Friuli.
Liguria
Carries Genoa’s red cross of St George.
Emilia-Romagna