City flag

Carlos Azevedo de Meneses, co-author of this Elucidário, wrote an excellent article on the city flag shortly before his death, and we wish to preserve it here because it contains interesting information, some of it unpublished and little known. He gathered it in the archives of the Municipal Council, where for many years he was a zealous and distinguished official, which gives it a special authority worthy of the greatest credit. This piece adds new material to what has already been said in the article headed Arms, to which we refer the reader. ‘From some notes and articles dated 1461 and recorded in the volume of the Archive of the Municipal Council, it can be seen that the first flag Funchal had, in the days when the captaincy existed, was sent by Infante Ferdinand, who, as is well known, received the lordship of the archipelago after the death of Henry the Navigator.

What colour and what emblems that flag bore we cannot say. What we do know is that later, in 1563, the image of the apostle St James appeared on the city flag, and that from the 17th century until the proclamation of the Constitution in 1834 the flag was always white, with the royal arms on one side and the city arms on the other.

The municipal standard was carried by the municipal procurator (procurador do concelho). At funeral rites or at the acclamation (aclamação, formal public proclamation of a new king) of monarchs he rode on horseback, bearing the staff of the standard on his right shoulder, with two servants behind him.

At the funeral rites of the former kings a black flag was displayed, bearing the royal arms on one side and the municipal arms on the other. In more recent times, however, this flag ceased to appear on occasions of national mourning, and in its place the white flag of the municipality was shown, with the arms covered in crêpe. In 1815 the Funchal Council ordered a standard from Lisbon which cost 524,000 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis), because it had been made from the finest silk fabrics to be found in the capital. So as not to strain the municipal finances, it was resolved that the councillors (vereadores) should pay 174,000 réis of that sum, the Council bearing the remainder. In the end, however, the price of the standard was paid entirely out of the assets of the municipality (concelho), as a later resolution of the Council shows.

With the establishment of constitutional government and the adoption of blue and white as the colours of the national flag, the city standard ceased to be white. The arms on it, however, were not altered, for it was after 1834, in all probability, that one of the sugar canes in those arms was replaced by a vine branch.

We have sometimes heard a former municipal employee say that the flag which for many years appeared at the official ceremonies the Council had to attend had belonged to the National Guard. What we have not been able to establish, however, is whether the vine branch that could be seen on it belonged to the original flag or was some replacement made in more recent times.

The flag to which we refer, and which we ourselves knew, has gone astray, when it ought surely to have been religiously preserved so that it might one day be displayed in some municipal museum.

The blue-and-white flag that replaced the old National Guard flag is very well preserved and is kept in the Council’s archive. As is customary, it bears the royal arms on one side and the arms of the city on the other. The shield of the city arms is greenish, while the border, crown, vine branch and sugarloaves are silver.

After the Republic was proclaimed, the Council had a flag made in the national colours, but bearing only the arms of the city, on one of its sides; the other side has no ornament at all. The shield is a very dark green, the border, sugarloaves and crown are silver, and the cane is green, though clearly distinguishable from the green of the flag on which it rests. The vine branch is also green. It seems that the flag we have just mentioned, which the Council of Funchal had made, was fit to be adopted by the municipality, needing only the addition of the national arms, since these had always appeared on the Council’s standard. The councillors who ran the municipality’s affairs until 31 December 1922 did not see it that way, however, and so they had a new standard made. Its predecessor was put away in the same cupboard in which the last municipal flag from the time of the monarchy is kept.

The standard that now appears at the ceremonies the Council has to attend is white, as in the days of absolutism, and bears the arms of the municipality on both sides, which runs counter not only to ancient practice but perhaps even to the orders issued by the central government. The shield is green with a yellow border, the crown is also yellow and the sugarloaves are white. The cane and the vine branch, both green, are joined at the base by a red-and-green ribbon on which is [written] ‘to the noble and loyal city of Funchal’, which is also an innovation.

Besides the standard we have just described, the Council has a large flag that is flown at the town hall (Paços do Concelho) on public holidays and days of national rejoicing. This flag, which is white, was also commissioned by the same councillors. It is a valuable work of art, but one in which respectable rules laid down in former times, and for whose rejection there was no reason whatsoever, were not observed. The municipality’s two present flags were ordered at the Council session of 2 October 1919.

We said above that it was formerly the municipal procurator (procurador do concelho) who carried the municipal standard. After that office disappeared, however, the flag-bearer became the youngest councillor (vereador), a custom that has lasted to our own day. If the secretary of the Council, known today as the head of the secretariat, has on occasion carried the municipal standard, it is not because he has any right to do so. It is because, even in the days of the monarchy, it became necessary to authorise this abuse in order to avoid disputes between young councillors eager to stand out as bearers of that standard at the official ceremonies in which the Funchal municipality took part’.

To clarify the passage transcribed above, it should be added that this article was published in the Diario da Madeira of 27 March 1927.