bandiera

bandiera

flag

           The colors of the  flag of Italy (bandiera d'Italia) date back to an Italian everyone assumes was French: Napoleon Bonaparte, born of Italian parents on the island of Corsica the year after France annexed it.  “The colors to adopt are the green (il verde), the white (il bianco) and the red (il rosso),"  he declared, although the flag of the nation he had conquered was meant only as a military standard.

            It wasn’t until 1946, when Italy became a republic,  that il tricolore, as the Italians call it, became the national flag.  In 2006 the government established  the official colors as verde erba (fern green), bianco latte (milk white)  and rosso pomodoro (tomato red).

            Why red, white and green?  Historians have traced these choices to the uniforms of various regiments, but Italian school children learn a different answer in a poem many friends can still recite by heart:

     “Con il rosso dei tramonti siciliani , 

    con il  bianco delle nevi delle Alpi 

    e con il verde delle valli di  Toscana, 

    noi faremo la bandiera Italiana.” 

    “With the red of the Sicilian sunsets 

    with the white of the snow in the Alps 

    and with the green of the Tuscan valleys 

    we will make the Italian flag.” 

            On national holidays and at great celebrations, such as a World Cup victory, Italy is a sea of red, white and green.  But these three colors also turn up in other places, literally and figuratively.  Rosso, for instance, is the color of il mar rosso (the Red Sea), rosso d’uovo (egg yolk, rosy in Italian farm eggs) carne rossa (red meat), and sugo rosso (tomato sauce).  A tourist might diventare rosso or arrossire (turn red or blush) when walking through a quartiere a luci rosse (red-light district).

             As if by magia bianca (white magic,  performed with the intent of doing good), bianco turns up  everywhere from a settimana bianca (white week or ski holiday) to a notte in bianco (sleepless night) to a matrimonio bianco (unconsummated marriage). If you misunderstand completely, you prendere bianco per nero (take white for black).  If you deceive people, you far vedere bianco per nero (make them see white for black). If you’re not feeling well, you should mangiare in bianco  (eat only "white" food products such as bread, pasta, chicken and rice).

Unlike Americans who overspend and end up in the red, Italians go to the green (al verde), an expression that dates back to the time when the base of a candle was painted green.  When the flame burned all the way down, people, presumably out of money to buy candles, ran out of light as well.  Al verde also may refer to the hapless state of a gambler who has lost everything and sees only the bare playing table, usually green, in front of him.

As you contemplate the colors of the Italian flag, you can listen to its anthem, Il Canto degli Italiani  (The Song of the Italians), better known as  Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) or Inno di Mamelli, anthem of Manelli, the young student and patriot who composed it in 1847:  

 

Words and Expressions

portare alta la bandiera – carry high or do honor to the flag, fly the flag of

voltare bandiera  --change flags, or opinions

issare la bandiera – hoist the flag

a bandiera spiegata – with flying colors

banderaio, bandieraio (dialect terms) – flagmaker 

banderola, banderuola (dialect terms)– streamer, pennant

bandierina -- small flag used in sport

Comments

[Danilo]

Yes, that's the order in which we usually say the colours of our flag. And, now that you mentioned it, it is not look as the "most natural order" to do it: when the flag hangs from a pole, green is the first colour your eyes meet, and "reading" it from left to right -what we in Western civilations instinctly do- it should be green, white and red. And even if we go the other way around, white is in the middle anyway. I guess we simply say the colours in alphabetical order, as comes quite natural: Bianco, Rosso, Verde.

[Dianne Hales]

Bianco, rosso e verde. White, red and green. My source is: Stefancich, Giovanna. Cose d'Italia. Roma: Bonacci editore, 1998.

Thanks for asking.

D

[TonyM]

Dianne... somewhere I read that Italians refer to the colors of their flag in a particular order (as in the USA red white and blue)... I can't find the original reference, but you probably know. In what order do Italians recite the colors of their flag???