Presentation

This site is dedicated to all the people who, like me, are interested in vexillology and heraldry, the disciplines that studies flags and coat of arms.

Why bandieredalvivo.com ?

In the web, there are hundreds of sites about heraldry and vexillology, practically in every world's language, and they are often very complete and extremely accurated; so, what was the need of one more site on the matter? 
The answer is easy: while the most of sites on this argument presents draws or vectorial images of flags and coat of arms, i preferred to investigate "on the field": all flags and coat of arms has been photographated live, and in the places which they represent, looking for them on administrative buildings, road panels, and so on.
If this method, for sure, is not so worthy in terms of quantity (to take a picture of the object is necessary to get on the place, with all the logistic and economical limits involved) and also in terms of  practice (the pictures are difficult to handle in the web), on the other side, it has the big advantage of  avoiding all the doubts and discussions on the authenticity of the objects: flags and coat of arms photographed are for sure the original ones , in the shape and shades in use in the areas.
The site is in permanent evolution, and although by now is quite small, i hope to be able 
to enrich it at the best in the future.

How is structured bandieredalvivo.com ?

You'll start from an index page, through which is possible to reach the pages dedicated to the various objects.

Each page includes a picture, PERSONALLY TAKEN BY ME IN THE PLACE THAT REPRESENT THE OBJECT (e.g., the flag of Andorra has been photographed in Andorra, the flag of Budapest region has been photographed in Budapest region, and so on). 
Each picture is correlated with the indication of the day and the place where the picture has been taken, and also with a small vectorial image of the object, often taken from other web sources (always indicated), which helps to better understand the nature and shape of the object, when not perfectly visible. A small description of shape, meaning, and a short history of the flag follows as well.
Unfortunately, all the site's texts are by now only in italian language, but my aim is really that visitors of the site can focus mainly on the pictures.

The picture's quality, unfortunately, is not always the best one: many pictures has been taken from long distance, because sometimes it was impossible to approach the object; other picture has been taken during the night. For the flags, there's also the "wind factor": some regions has been visited in days of "total calm" of wind, and, despite long waitings (with great patience by people who accompanied me) it has been impossible to take pictures of the flags displayed at the best. Is the price you have to pay if you want to do this kind of research.

Conerning Italy, i considered  national, regional and provincial
flags and coats of arms
. For the other countries, i focused on the flags of nations and regions, and not on coats of arms.

I thank in advance all the visitors, every comment, critic and greeting is welcome!
I thank in advance also all the people who will propose new material, but i will not include it in the site, because i want to include only  pictures personally taken. It's a kind of incentive to me, to travel more, looking for new flags to be photographed.
Hoping that my work could be interesting for you all
Sincerely

Stefano Tagliabue


INDEX     HOME     Italian presentation     News

info@bandieredalvivo.it