Milan’s coat of arms: a symbol of the city’s identity and history
Reading Time: 3 minutes A story with a sow
The Coat of Arms of Milan – There are many legends about the founding of Milan that are linked to its history. There are those who claim that the true founder of Milan was the mythological Bellovesco, a Gallic chieftain who, during an expedition near the Alps, was inspired by the beauty of the area and decided to stop. The year was around 600 BC. The Gauls instructed the priests to ask the Gods for the most suitable place to settle and to name the city that would become the capital of the territory they had conquered.
The gods replied: “Look for a place where a sow is grazing with half of its back covered in the wool”; hence the name of the city: Mediolanum (in medio lanae = half wool). This is the most famous legend confirmed by the first coat of arms of the city. A sow with wool on her back, which can still be seen today carved into the second arch of the Palazzo della Ragione in the piazza Mercanti.
Coat of arms of Milan – the snake
This coat of arms is followed by the famous (non-venomous) snake on the flag.
Its first appearance dates back to the early 11th century. It was during this time that Ottone III instructed Archbishop Arnolfo to go to the court of the Byzantine Empire to make a deal for his marriage to a princess of that court. In addition to the bride, Arnolfo brought back from the East two other wonders: A statue that, with the help of an ingenious mechanism, was able to formulate a few words that predicted the future and a precious bronze snake from the time of Moses. But as soon as he reached the port of Bari with his fiancée, the news of Otto’s death reached him, just as the statue had predicted.
The future spouse returned to the East taking the statue with her and the Archbishop returned to Milan with the serpent. To this day, it can still be seen in one of the porphyry columns inside the Basilica of Saint Ambrose, halfway down the central nave, and women attribute to it miraculous powers against certain childhood diseases. Since then, the snake has become a symbol of the city and began to appear on banners.
There is also another legend, according to which the snake appears in the coat of arms of the ancient Visconti. According to it, one of the warriors called Azzone, who belonged to the family, was in the battles against the Florentines in Pisa (1323). One day, tired after a long march, he dismounted his horse, took off his helmet, and fell asleep under a tree. The snake crawled into his headgear and nestled there. When Azzone woke up, he put on his helmet, and all of a sudden a snake crawled out of the helmet with its mouth wide open.
The soldiers who were in the vicinity were frightened, but not Azzone, who let the snake get away without killing it. He also took it as a sign, and since the snake was not poisonous, he wanted to present it with a child in its mouth, but it would not harm the child…
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