Tricolour sash by Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli

The birth of the Italian flag is generally referred to the work of two Bolognese students in 1794 or, more correctly, to the National Guard of Milan and the Lombard Legion of 1796, while the official birth date of the Tricolour is agreed to be on 7 January, 1797, when the Cispadane Congress took place in Reggio Emilia. At first, the flag consisted of three parallel horizontal bands of green, white and red. In 1830, in Modena, the patriot Ciro Menotti (1798-1831) proposed that the tricolour be used as the symbol of the new Italy, and Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli (1804-1871) in Reggio Emilia sewed one of the first flags. However, the consecration of the Tricolour occurred in 1831 with Giuseppe Mazzini and the founding of the Young Italy movement. The use of the Tricolour spread in 1848 to the Republic of Venice, to the Five Days of Milan, and was used during the Sicilian revolution and the Roman Republic in 1849.