Tricolour Day (), officially National Flag Day (), is the flag day of Italy. Celebrated on 7 January, it was established by Law 671 on 31 December 1996. It is intended as a celebration, though not a public holiday. The official celebration of the day is held in Reggio Emilia, the city where the Italian tricolour was first adopted as flag by an Italian sovereign state, the Cispadane Republic, on 7 January 1797.
History
The day was established by law n. 671 of 31 December 1996 with the intention of celebrating the bicentenary of the birth in Reggio nell'Emilia of the Italian flag, which officially took place, as already mentioned, on 7 January 1797 with the official adoption of the Tricolour by the Cispadana Republic, a sister republic of the French First Republic born the previous year.
Previously, the Italian national colours had already appeared on the tricolour cockades and on some military banners but on 7 January 1797, for the first time, the Tricolour was officially adopted by an Italian sovereign State. To suggest the adoption of a green, white and red flag was Giuseppe Compagnoni, who for this reason is known as the "Father of the Tricolour". In the minutes of the meeting of 7 January 1797 which was convened by the founding committee of the Cispadane Republic and which took place in a room of the town hall later renamed Sala del Tricolore, it can be read:
The congress decision to adopt a green, white and red tricolour flag was then greeted by a jubilant atmosphere, such was the enthusiasm of the delegates, and by a peal of applause. In France, due to the Revolution, the flag went from having a "dynastic" and "military" meaning to a "national" one, and this concept, still unknown in Italy, was transmitted by the French to the Italians. In the assembly of 21 January, which was instead convened in Modena, the adoption of the Tricolour was confirmed. The flag of the Cispadane Republic was in horizontal bands with the top red, the white in the center and the green at the bottom. In the center was also the emblem of the republic, while on the sides the letters "R" and "C" were shown, the initials of the two words that form the name of the "Repubblica Cispadana".
The Cispadane and Transpadana republics merged a few months later to form the Cisalpine Republic, whose Grand Council, on 11 May 1798, adopted a tricolour flag in vertical bands with no crests, emblems or letters. The flag of the Cisalpine Republic was maintained until 1802, when it was renamed the Napoleonic Italian Republic (1802–1805), and a new flag was adopted, this time with a red field carrying a green square within a white lozenge; the Presidential Standard of Italy in use since 14 October 2000 was inspired by this flag. It was during this period that the green, white and red tricolour predominantly penetrated the collective imagination of the Italians, becoming an unequivocal symbol of Italianness. In less than 20 years, the red, white and green flag had acquired its own peculiarity from a simple flag derived from the French one, becoming very famous and known.
In the same year, after Napoleon had crowned himself as the first French Emperor, the Italian Republic was transformed into the first Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805–1814), or Italico, under his direct rule. The flag of the Kingdom of Italy was that of the Republic in rectangular form, charged with the golden Napoleonic eagle. This remained in use until the fall of Napoleon in 1814.
With the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the absolutist monarchical regimes, the Italian tricolour went underground, becoming the symbol of the patriotic ferments that began to spread in Italy and the symbol which united all the efforts of the Italian people towards freedom and independence. In the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, a state dependent on the Austrian Empire born after the fall of Napoleon, those who exhibited the Italian tricolour were subject to the death penalty. The Austrians' objective was in fact, quoting the textual words of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria: "[The tricolour was banned to] make people forget that they are Italian."