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Italian Socialist Party - Historical Flags (Italy)

Partito Socialista Italiano

image by Marcus Schmöger, 23 April 2013

Refounded party
Historical Flags

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Refounded party

PSI (Partito Socialista Italiano = Italian Socialist Party)

The original PSI was founded in 1892, but dissolved in 1994. After that followed many years of the socialists in diaspora, the most successful party with socialist roots being the SDI. In 2007, a new party under the name PS (Partito Socialista) collected much of the diaspora, including SDI, I Socialisti Italiani, Partito Socialista (De Michelis) and several other socialist organizations. In 2009, it changed its name to the current one, thus returning to the venerable name and abbreviation. The PSI was part of the center-left alliance in the February 2013 elections. It holds 4 seats in the Camera dei Deputati and 1 seat in the Senato.
The main symbol since the 1970s (under Bettino Craxi) was the red carnation, that remains the symbol of all Italian socialists in the Craxian tradition. The SDI (and now the new PSI), however, have preferred the rose, used by most European socialist and social-democratic parties. The current symbol is a red field with the white party name and a white rose with white European stars; over a field in the national colours, including the red "PSI" in the white stripe. The flag is a banner-of-arms [1,2,3,4].

Sources:
[1] flag no. 202 in Italian political flags collection Schmöger, from
PSI Milano.
[2]
http://www.ilvaglio.it/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/raccolta-firme-asl-113A-300x17\
7.jpg
[3]
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t5TKVQHbB2o/UOhhrAUa7_I/AAAAAAAAClQ/FCL5pI4mpMs/s1600/\
IMG_4217.jpg
[4] http://www.sinistra.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ps_psi.png

Regards,
Marcus Schmöger

Historical Flags

in the book I recently found (L'immagine del socialismo; [bgp82]) there are fotos of 15 old flags of different sections of the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano = PSI). There is not much info on these flags in the book, only that they date from the late 19th century to about 1920. The flags show on a usually red field typical socialist symbols such as hammer&sickle, wheat ears, rising sun, clasping hands. Furthermore the inscription of the name of the party section and socialist mottos such as "Proletarii di tutti i paesi unitevi!" (Proletarians of all countries, unite!) or "Chi non lavora, non mangia" (Who doesn't work, doesn't eat). The symbols on the flags are usually embroidered or painted. Although I think that the fotos in the book only show the central part of slightly larger flags (there are no edges visible, no fringe etc), my images are showing this central part illustrated in the book in standard size.