GONFALONE. - Derives from the ancient German *Gundfano*, which is equivalent to *Kriegsfahne*, i.e., war banner. In current usage it has the same meaning as standard. Used in the Middle Ages as a religious insignia and as a military ensign, it was carried at the head of processions and hoisted by military companies. Villani recounts that in Florence in 1257 the captain of the people delivered 20 gonfalons to the leaders of the companies.
In the second half of the 13th century, very numerous companies of penitents gathered under the insignia of a gonfalone. In Rome, since the 14th century, there was the Confraternity of the Gonfalone. In the Veneto region, it was customary to place a standard or gonfalone in the squares as an ornament. Numerous are the ancient gonfalons, painted or embroidered, that have come down to us, some made for particular events or to obtain special graces. Many are found in Umbria. In Perugia, for example, there is one by Berto di Giovanni in the Cathedral, another by Perugino in the Picture Gallery, and another by Bonfigli in S. Maria Nuova and S. Bernardino. In these gonfalons, the Virgin is represented in the center, sheltering the inhabitants of the city under her wide mantle from the arrows of the plague shot by Christ; at the sides are the patron saints. New is the iconography of the gonfalone by Niccolò Alunno for the city of Assisi (Priesterhaus of Kevelaer): the Virgin is represented on one side as intercessor, and for the first time, instead of the kneeling devotees, the vision of the entire city appears. Also noteworthy is the gonfalone in the Picture Gallery of Città di Castello, painted by Timoteo Vite and Raphael. Numerous are the 16th-century gonfalons, from the Baroque period, and also modern ones, still used as insignia of confraternities or religious associations, some embroidered with exceptional richness. - See pl. LXIII.