Flag of Lombardy

Lombardy did not have an official flag until February 5, 2019:

The adapted coat of arms in the form of a flag was used for institutional purposes. From 1990, the political party of the League of Lombardy, which later became the Lega Nord, proposed with the V Legislature to adopt as official banner the flag of Milan or a white flag with the red cross of St. George the center, also used by the medieval Lombard League, so that the use of the Camuna rose was limited exclusively to the coat of arms and the banner. On the Carroccio the white crusader banner with red was present of the medieval Lombard League in 1176 during the Battle of Legnano and was also brought to Jerusalem by the Lombards in the First Crusade in 1096.

This proposal was also presented again in the 6th legislature, still without follow-up. In 2002, during the VII legislature of the Lombardy Region , the parties Lega Nord , Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale again proposed the official introduction of a flag with a red St. George's cross on a white background, again without further follow-up. The proposal was then presented again in the VIII, IX and X legislatures, but never approved.

In 2007, a study commissioned by IRER ( Regional Research Institute) proposed the adoption of the Visconti Ducal, symbol of the Duchy of Milan , consisting of a snake (symbol of the Visconti) quartered with the Imperial Eagle, with modernized graphics. The study took into account the fact that even the territories of Brescia, Bergamo and Crema , although long part of the Republic of Venice, belonged to the rule of the Visconti for much of the 14th century and at the beginning of the 15th century to the Duchy of Milan for a few decades, while Mantua was briefly linked by dynasties. However, the proposal was not followed up by the Executive or the Council .

In 2011, the Region proposed a new official flag combining the Camuna rose and St. George's cross. On September 16, 2011 the first sketches were published, subjected to a survey in Corriere della Sera, but without follow-up. On March 12, 2015, another possible variant of the union of the two banners was proposed by the center-right majority.

The de facto flag of Lombardy (third from left) displayed at the Quirinal Palace on November 4, 1995.

Another option considered by the Region was the official adoption of the green flag with the pink Camuna Argentea in the center, already used as a de facto flag and displayed in a room of the Quirinale on November 4, 1995 with the other banners of the Italian Regions (almost all made for the occasion and not regulated by laws) at the behest of the President of the Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. This last flag proposal was approved after the unanimous vote of approval of the Regional Council on January 29, 2019, with subsequent promulgation of the Regional Law of February 4, 2019, No. 2, Establishment and Adoption of the Flag, Ribbon and Distinctive Mark of the Region of Lombardy (BURL No. 2, Supplement of February 4, 2019), which entered into force on February 5, 2019.

Source: Wikipedia

The official coat of arms of Lombardy consists of a Camuna rose, an ancient solar symbol common to some Proto-Celtic peoples and present on 94 of the approximately 140,000 rock engravings of the Val Camonica in the province of Brescia. These engravings were made from the Mesolithic (VIII-VI millennium BC) to the Iron Age (1st millennium BC) By various ancient peoples, including the Camuni. The engravings of the latter, including the eponymous rose, date from the Iron Age.

The stylized Camuna rose on the region's coat of arms is in silver and symbolizes light. It is inscribed in a green square (1: 1) representing the Po Valley . Officially adopted along with the banner with Regional Law No. 85 of June 12, 1975, the symbol was introduced at the suggestion of the then Cultural Councilor Alessandro Fontana and designed in the same year by Pino Tovaglia. Bob Noorda, Roberto Sambonet and Bruno Munari.