Italy commemorates the 150th anniversary of its unification in
2011. To celebrate and mark its significance, President Giorgio
Napolitano launched celebrations with raising the Italian flag
in Reggio Emilia, Italy where the flag was first selected more
than 200 years ago on January 7, 1797. During the event,
Napolitano honored Turin, Florence and Rome, the three cities
that have served as Italian state capitals, with reproductions
of the original flag and handed out copies of the Italian
constitution to students from local schools. Napolitano stated
during his address that “…we cannot, as a nation, think of the
future without memory and consciousness of the past. It serves
us, it helps us to retrace the contradictions and harshness of
the path that brought us in 1860 to become a united nation…”
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