There trinacria it is perhaps the symbol of Sicily par excellence, but what not everyone knows is that this figure does not only appear on our regional flag, but also on that of another country – or rather, another island. I am referring to theIsle of Manbetween England and Ireland, where the trinacria version appears “battleship”, with three legs in white and yellow armor. But what is the origin of this flag? And is there a connection with the Sicilian one?
As also reported by an article in Cambridge Archaeological Journalit is hypothesized that theIsle of Man adopted the trinacria in 1266, when its control (as well as that of the Hebrides, in Scotland) passed from the kingdom of Norway to Alexander III of Scotland. The motivation behind this choice is still unknown today: one of the most accredited hypotheses is that the sovereign became aware of the symbol – already in use in Sicily – through his father-in-law Henry III of Englandwhose son Edmund Plantagenet he obtained the title of “King of Sicily” from Pope Innocent IV.
The Sicilian trinacria, in turn, has a very ancient and not entirely known origin, even if the first evidence of the symbol dates back to 7th century BCwell before the arrival of the Normans.
However, the island’s flag as we know it today is actually much more recent, dating back to 1932. In fact, the problem is that the symbol was never represented in the same way: in some flags the legs were arranged in different ways clockwise, in others however in sense counterclockwiseand even the angle of rotation was not always constant. For this reason in 1968 a standard version was created, imposing a clockwise arrangement of the legs, with a single leg in the lower part and two in the upper part.
