page_title: Carroccio
section_title: Posthumous meaning
hierarchical_section_title: Carroccio / The Carroccio in the modern era / Posthumous meaning
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Il Carroccio durante la sfilata storica del Palio di Legnano 2015
context_page_description: A Carroccio was a large four-wheeled wagon bearing the city signs around which the militia of the medieval communes gathered and fought. It was particularly common among the Lombard, Tuscan and, more generally, northern Italian municipalities. Later its use spread even outside Italy. It was the symbol of municipal autonomy. Priests celebrated Mass at the altar before the battle, and the trumpeters beside them encouraged the fighters to the fray.
  Defended by selected troops, paved with the colors of the municipality, it was generally pulled by oxen and carried an altar, a bell, an antenna on which a Christian cross and the city signs. In peace time it was kept in the main church of the city to which it belonged.
  In battle the Carroccio was surrounded by the bravest warriors in the army as the Carroccio guard, and it served both as a rallying-point and as the palladium of the city's honour; its capture by the enemy was regarded as an irretrievable defeat and humiliation.
context_section_description: Since the Carroccio is a signum, in modern times it has become a symbol of ideas, hopes and different meanings, very often as anti-tyrannical propaganda during the period of the Signorias, up to Romanticism and the Risorgimento, where it became the symbol of the struggle against the occupation foreign. Important promoters of these ideas were Massimo d'Azeglio, Giovanni Berchet, Amos Cassioli, Francesco Hayez.
  Giosuè Carducci first and Giovanni Pascoli then recalled, with the Canzone di Legnano and Canzone del Carroccio, the splendours and splendours of medieval Italian comunes, concepts that were later taken up also by the writings of Gabriele D'Annunzio.
caption: Reproduction of the Carroccio during the historical parade of the Palio di Legnano 2015
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