Flag of Sardinia

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Sardinia

The Sardinian flag. The pre-1999 version of the Sardinian flag showing the Moors' heads blindfolded and facing to the left.[1][2][3][4][5]
The four Moors
Use	Civil and state flag
Proportion	3:5 or 2:3
Adopted	Used since 1281; current version adopted on 15 April 1999
Design	Four moors head in St. George's cross

The flag of Sardinia (Sardinian: bandera de sa Sardigna, bandera sarda, Sa pandhela de sa Sarđhinna), called the flag of the Four Moors or simply the Four Moors (Italian: I quattro mori; Sardinian: Sos bator moros and Is cuatru morus), represents and symbolizes the island of Sardinia (Italy) and its people. It was also the historical flag and coat of arms of the Aragonese, then Spanish, and later Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia. It was first officially adopted by the autonomous region in 1950 with a revision in 1999, describing it as a "white field with a red cross and a bandaged Moor's head facing away from the hoist (the edge close to the mast) in each quarter" (Regional Law 15 April 1999, n. 10, Art. 1).^[6]

The flag is composed of the St George's Cross and four heads of Moors, which in the past may not have been forehead bandaged but blindfolded and turned towards the hoist. But already well-preserved pictures from the 16th century clearly show a forehead bandage (see gallery below). The most accepted hypothesis is that the heads represented the heads of Moorish princes defeated by the Aragonese, as for the first time they appeared in the 13th-century seals of the Crown of Aragon – although with a beard and no bandage, contrary to the Moors of the Sardinian flag, which appeared for the first time in a manuscript of the second half of the 14th century.