The flag of San Marino, white, light blue and three towers

The San Marino flag has an odd history for a country so proud of its age. For centuries it flew without any law saying what it looked like, and when one was finally written, in 2011, the government admitted nobody knows when it was adopted. I find that more honest than the neat dates doing the rounds, so here’s what the documents actually say.

What it looks like, according to the law

The Constitutional Law of 22 July 2011 describes it in a sentence that leaves no room for doubt. Two fields divided horizontally, white above and blue below, with the official coat of arms in the centre. Parliament passed it on 20 July with 45 votes for, 2 against and 1 abstention, and wrote it into the 1974 Declaration of Rights, the closest thing San Marino has to a constitution. How that piece fits with the rest I cover in San Marino’s constitution. There’s a detail at the foot of the text I love. Beside 22 July 2011 it gives a second date, 1710 d.F.R., the year counted from the founding of the Republic, signed by the Captains Regent of that semester, Maria Luisa Berti and Filippo Tamagnini.

The annexes fill in the rest. The proportions are three by four, a little squarer than we’re used to, though two by three is allowed for international use. The blue isn’t any blue, it’s a specific light blue, Pantone 2915 C. And the white is called, literally, flag white.

The coat of arms, a landscape that exists

The arms sit in the middle of the flag and make it recognisable. A blue field, three green peaks and above them three silver towers, windowed, battlemented and topped with ostrich feathers. Over the shield, a closed crown, symbol of sovereignty. Beneath, a laurel branch and an oak branch, crossed and bearing golden fruit. And a silver ribbon with the word LIBERTAS in black.

What I love is that the towers aren’t decoration. They’re the Guaita, the Cesta and the Montale, the three fortifications on Mount Titano, and you can walk from one to the next along the cliff edge. The walk between them, with times and tickets, is in three towers of San Marino. If you have Sammarinese coins in your pocket, look at the current 20-cent, which shows Titano with its three towers. I go through the rest in San Marino coins and stamps.

When was the San Marino flag adopted?

This is the interesting part. Plenty of websites say 6 April 1862, but San Marino’s Interior Ministry, presenting the 2011 law, explained that no historical source or institutional document lets anyone fix the adoption date of either the flag or the arms. The 1862 decree is real, but what it decided was that the arms should carry a closed crown.

There are clues, though. A document of 4 September 1465 mentions a banner in three vertical bands, yellow and crimson on the outside and white in the centre. Historians are certain white and blue were in use before 1797, because that year the Council ordered a white and blue cockade, similar to the one worn by French revolutionaries. A 1936 law regulated how the flag should be flown without saying what it looked like, and one from 1931 reserved the crowned arms for state offices. Nothing more until 2011.

What do the white and blue stand for?

The law doesn’t explain. The usual reading, which Wikipedia records, is that the blue is the sky and the white is liberty. It fits the motto on the arms, so I think it’s a decent way to remember it, but it’s interpretation rather than official fact.

Because private citizens weren’t allowed to use the arms, a civil flag with just the two bands also caught on, according to the same source. The town halls of the castelli fly it with their own local arms instead of the national ones, so don’t be surprised to see it without the towers.

Where to see it flying

On any public building. If you want to see it at a state occasion, the fixed dates are 1 April and 1 October, when the new Captains Regent are sworn in at Palazzo Valloni and at the Pubblico next door. For more odd details like the flag without a birthday, see my San Marino facts, and for the centuries of context, the history of San Marino.