Flag of Vatican City
The Vatican flag colors derive from the emblem in the fly. They were adopted as the papal colors by Plus VII in 1808, and the flag was used from 1825 until the unification of Italy in 1870, when all provinces, including the Papal States, were joined. In the 1929 Lateran Treaty, Italy granted the Papal States the right to a separate existence, confined to the Vatican City. The emblem itself shows the three-tiered papal crown, signifying the three type of temporal power – legislative, executive and judicial – vested in the pope, while the crossed keys below symbolize his spiritual authority from the bestowing of the keys of Heaven by Christ on St. Peter, the first pope.
The ratio of the flag is 1:1.
