History
The Vatican traditionally used a yellow and red flag, the traditional colors of the Roman Senate and the Roman people.
In 1808 Pope Pius VII ordered the Vatican's Noble Guard and other troops to replace the yellow and red colors with yellow and white. The only exception were the troops that were serving in the French armies under the command of General Sestio A. F. Miollis, who was allowed to keep using the old colors.
In 1824 the Vatican's merchant navy used a white a yellow flag, but they were set in diagonal. In 1848 tri-color ties (white, red and green) were added to the merchant navy.
In 1849 Pope Pius IX returned from his exile in Gaeta and ordered the colors to be disposed vertically and replaced the ties with the papal coat of arms.
On February 11, 1929, Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Italy, recognizing the current flag as the legal flag of a foreign state, thus protecting it under Article 299 of the Italian Criminal Code. It was ratified by the Italian parliament in June 7, 1929.
Read more about this topic: Flag Of Vatican City
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)