Italia turrita

The allegorical representation with the towers, which draws its origins from ancient Rome, is typical of Italian civic heraldry, so much so that the mural crown is also the symbol of the cities of Italy.

[9] However, the classic representation of Italia turrita, originated from a coin minted under the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, the exhibition sitting on a globe and holding a cornucopia and a scepter in his hand.

[11][12] Italia turrita has been depicted throughout history in many national contexts: stamps, honors, coins, monuments, on the passport and, more recently, on the back of the Italian identity card.

Afterwards, from 130 AD on, under the emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Septimius Severus and Caracalla, Roman coins reproduced the allegorical representation of Italy as a dressed and towered woman who sometimes carries a cornucopia.

During the reign of Antoninus Pius a sestertius was coined representing Italy as a turreted woman, sitting on a globe and holding a cornucopia in one hand while in the other the command stick.

[27] In the early Middle Ages period, the personification of Italy in a turreted woman almost completely disappeared from the collective imagination, limiting itself to appear rarely but without having those distinctive features, such as the walls or the cornucopia, which had so characterized it in Roman times.

[27] From the Middle Ages the allegorical depiction of Italy began to transmit torture and despair:[11] the country, in fact, was no longer the absolute protagonist of those important political and military events that they had characterized ancient Roman history so much.

Cesare Ripa definitively specified the characteristics of the Italia turrita, characteristics that have come down to us:[11] [...] A beautiful woman dressed in a sumptuous dress, and rich with a mantle on top, and sitting on a globe, has crowned the head of towers, and walls, with the right hand she holds a scepter, or an auction, which with the one, and with the other, is shown in the aforementioned Medals, and with the left hand a cornucopia full of different fruits, and beyond that we will do again, having a beautiful star above the head [...][a]Italia turrita recovered the solemn aura in the 19th century, becoming one of the symbols of the Italian unification, during which it was often represented as a prisoner, that is, subjected to the foreign powers that dominated the country at the time, or extolling the call to arms with the aim to encourage the Italian people to actively participate in the process of unification of the country; the iconography of the allegorical personification of Italy, during the Italian unification period, was also used in propaganda vignettes for political purposes.

[32][33] It is from this period that most of the marble statues representing Italia turrita were built; the erection of monuments to the allegorical personification of the country continued even after the three wars of independence.

[34] This tendency to relegate Italia turrita to a supporting role, which began in 1870 with the capture of Rome,[35] was also confirmed during fascism, which made the call of Roman history one of the cornerstones of the regime.

The iconography of the allegorical personification of Italy was resumed in the second post-war period: in 1946 the supporters of the republic chose the effigy of the Italia turrita as their unitary symbol to be used in the electoral campaign and on the referendum card on the institutional form of the State, in contrast to the Savoy coat of arms, which represented the monarchy.