Village of Il-Furjana (Floriana) (Malta)

urjana

Last modified: 2013-12-09 by rob raeside
Keywords: malta | floriana | lion (red-yellow) | arm: winged (yellow) | banner of arms (vilhena) |
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image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 15 October 2008

• Description
• Banner of Arms

See also:

• Subnational Flags (Malta)
• Malta

Other sites:

• Coat-of-Arms of Floriana at the Local Council website

Description

Blazon: Per pale Gules a sword Argent and an angel wing Or issuant from a hand and Argent a lion Gules its head Or armed Sable.
Željko Heimer, 1 November 2002

It is a white flag with the local council's coat of arms in its centre.
Description of coat of arms:
The shield is divided per pale. The dexter side shows a red rampant lion with a golden head in a silvery (= white) field. The sinister side shows a golden winged arm holding upright a sword in natural colour. Both elements are taken from the coat of arms of Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena, who built up the suburb. The chief architect was Floriani, who gave the city its name.
Source: I spotted this flag in front of Hotel Excelsior in Floriana on 2 October 2008
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 15 October 2008

What looks like a sword and palm tree branch emerging from clouds on Dirk Schönberger's image is actually an angel's winged hand holding a sword, see the coat-of-arms at the Maltese Government Official Website and the SearchMalta.com website. According to Ralf Hartemink's International Civic Heraldry website, the arms are based on the arms of the Portuguese Grand Master Vilhena who ordered the Italian architect Pietro Floriani to design Floriana (hence the name) as Valletta's suburb.
Santiago Dotor, 10 February 2006

Pascal Gross' Atlas Géographique Mondial website, shows however the hoist and fly halves in the opposite order (image here), with the caption "...drawn by Adrian Strickland" [str], the expert in Maltese flags. Presumably this is the current Il-Furjana flag.
Santiago Dotor, 10 March 2006

Banner of Arms

3:5 image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 8 June 2007

Vertically divided flag: red hoist with a yellow, winged angel's arm bearing a sword erect, its sheath white; white fly with a red lion rampant, its head yellow.
Santiago Dotor, 10 February 2006