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© Jeff
Matthews 2002-2012
Sardinia
index
The Sardinian
Flag
The flag of the Italian region of Sardinia,
popularly known also as the Four Moors flag,
consists of a red cross on a white
background (St. George's cross) with a
moor's head in each quarter. The origin of
the flag is not exactly clear, but there are
various explanations, all of which involve
the struggles in the Mediterranean 1,000
years ago between the forces of Islam and
those of Christianity. One Spanish tradition
dates the appearance of the flag to
celebrations following the victory in the
Battle of Alcoraz by King Peter I of Aragon
and Navarre in 1096; the four moors refer to
the Arab defeat at his hands. Another
Spanish explanation is that the figures on
the flag represent four specific battles all
ending in Christian victories over Islam:
the battles were at Saragozza, Valencia,
Murcia and the Balearic islands. Sardinian
tradition, however, puts the origin somewhat
earlier at the year 1017 when Pope Benedict
II is said to have given the flag as a
symbol to the Pisans in order to help the
Sardinians against Saracen
(Muslim pirate) attacks against the island.
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 Whatever
the case, the first historically documented
appearance of the emblem is dated 1281, as a
seal used by the royal chancellorship of Peter
III of Aragon; it thus became associated
symbolically with the entire "Crown of
Aragon," a confederation that included
Sardinia. It was then the symbol of the
short-lived Regnum
Sardiniae et Corsicae, a union of
Corsica and Sardinia proclaimed by the Pope in
1297.
Paradoxically, Sardinian independence
movements over the centuries included
movements against, first, the Aragonese and
then their successor state in the late 1400s,
the new nation state of Spain; thus, the flag
that has now become the symbol of Sardinia was
often viewed as the flag of the enemy! The use
of the Moor's Head is not unique to Sardinia;
a single, identical head is also the symbol of
the island of Corsica.
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