National symbols of Italy

[4] Other official symbols, as reported by the Presidency of the Italian Republic,[2] are: The teaching in the schools of Il Canto degli Italiani, the reflection on the Risorgimento events, and on the adoption of the Flag of Italy are prescribed by law n. 222 of 23 November 2012.

From an architectural point of view it was conceived as a modern forum, an agora on three levels connected by stairways and dominated by a portico characterized by a colonnade.

The complex process of national unity and liberation from foreign domination carried out by King Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy, to whom the monument is dedicated, has a great symbolic and representative value, being architecturally and artistically centered on the Italian unification: for this reason the Vittoriano is considered one of the national symbols of Italy.

Located in the center of ancient Rome and connected to the modern one thanks to streets radiating from Piazza Venezia, it has been consecrated to a wide symbolic value representing - thanks to the call of the figure of Vittorio Emanuele II and the realization of the Altare della Patria - a lay temple metaphorically dedicated to a free and united and celebrating Italy - by virtue of the burial of the Unknown Soldier - the sacrifice for the homeland and for the connected ideals.

It is one of the national symbols of Italy and is composed of the three colours of the Italian flag with the green in the centre, the white immediately outside and the red on the edge.

[19] The cockade, a revolutionary symbol par excellence, was the protagonist of the uprisings that characterized the Italian unification, being pinned on the jacket or on the hats in its tricolour form by the many patriots who were protagonists of this period of the history of Italy - during which the Italian Peninsula achieved the own national unity - which culminated on 17 March 1861 with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy.

[28] It is tradition, for the most important offices of the State, excluding the President of the Italian Republic, to have a tricolour cockade pinned to their jacket during the military parade of the Festa della Repubblica, which is celebrated every 2 June.

Although often referred to as a coat of arms (or stemma in Italian), it is technically an emblem akin to so-called socialist heraldry as it was not designed to conform to traditional heraldic rules.

The armorial bearings of the House of Savoy, blazoned gules a cross argent, were previously in use by the former Kingdom of Italy; the supporters, on either side a lion rampant Or, were replaced with fasci littori (literally bundles of the lictors) during the fascist era.

The day commemorates the institutional referendum held by universal suffrage in 1946, in which the Italian people were called to the polls to decide on the form of government, following the Second World War and the fall of Fascism The ceremonial of the event organized in Rome includes the deposition of a laurel wreath as a tribute to the Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria by the President of the Italian Republic and a military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.

This celebration commemorates the first official adoption of the tricolour as a national flag by a sovereign Italian state, the Cispadane Republic, a Napoleonic sister republic of Revolutionary France, which took place in Reggio Emilia on 7 January 1797, on the basis of the events following the French Revolution (1789–1799) which, among its ideals, advocated the national self-determination.

Following its adoption, the tricolour became one of the most recognisable and defining features of united Italian statehood in the following two centuries of the history of Italy.

[36] On the top of the entrance stairway, it was designed by the Brescian sculptor Angelo Zanelli, who won a competition specially held in 1906.

[37] The statue of Roma present at the Vittoriano interrupted a custom in vogue until the 19th century, by which the representation of this subject was with exclusively warlike traits.

Angelo Zanelli, in his work, decided to further characterize the statue by also providing the reference to Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and the arts, as well as of war.

"Il Canto degli Italiani" was in fact considered too little conservative with respect to the political situation of the time: Fratelli d'Italia, of clear republican and Jacobin connotation, it was difficult to reconcile with the outcome of the unification of Italy, which was a monarchy.

Over the decades there were several unsuccessful attempts to make it the official national anthem, but it finally gained de jure status on 4 December 2017.

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

Italia turrita, which is one of the national symbols of Italy, has been widely depicted for centuries in the fields of art, politics and literature.

Its most classic aspect, which derives from the primordial myth of the Great Mediterranean Mother and which was definitively specified at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries by Cesare Ripa, wants to symbolically convey the royalty and nobility of Italian cities (thanks to the presence of crown turrita), the abundance of agricultural crops of the Italian peninsula (represented by the cornucopia) and the shining destiny of Italy (symbolized by the Stella d'Italia).

It is the oldest national symbol of Italy, since it dates back to Graeco-Roman tradition[14] when Venus, associated with the West as an evening star, was hired to identify the Italian peninsula.