Last modified: 2019-09-16 by ivan sache
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Flag of Paterna del Campo - Image from the Símbolos de Huelva website, 3 September 2016
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The municipality of Paterna del Campo (3,764 inhabitants in 2008; 13,240 ha; municipal website) is located 60 km north-east of Huelva.
Paterna del Campo is located, together with Escacena del Campo and Castilleja del Campo, in the region known as Campo de Tejada. In the 10th-6th centuries BC, the main settlement in the area was Old Tejada, a significant mining and trading center. Afterwards, mining declined and Old Tejada was superseded by New Tejada, a rural settlement. In the Roman times, New Tejada, located mostly on today's Paterna territory, was known as Itucci; the water of the Alpízar source was transported via an aquaduct to Italica, the first brand-new Roman town in Hispania and the birth place of Emperors Trajan and Hadrian, today the town of Santiponce (Province of Seville). The name of Paterna refers to the Latin word pater, "a father", probably recalling that a Roman senator (pater patriae, "the father of his country") owned an estate (villa) in the neighborhood.
The Christian reconquest of Seville in 1253 did not prevent the "Moorish king of Tejada" from ruling a state for a few more decades. The castle of Alpízar, probably built over a Roman estate, marked the border between the taifa of Tejada and the Kingdom of Castile; after the seizure of the castle, King Sancho IV granted the title of villa to Paterna in 1291. In spite of a big effort of resettlement and the development of grapevine, wheat and olive tree cultivation, Paterna was not significantly developed until the 19th century. Pyrite and iron extraction boosted the development of the town in the beginning of the 20th century for a short time, followed by the mining crisis and massive emigration.
Ivan Sache, 1 August 2009
The flag of Paterna del Campo, adopted on 23 June 2004 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 8 July 2004 to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 15 July 2004 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 29 July 2004 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 148, p. 16,881 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular flag, in proportion 11:18, made of three parallel stripes perpendicular to the hoist, the first, red, in height 4/7, the second, black, in height 1/7, and the third, blue, in height 2/7. Centered overall the municipal coat of arms.
Based on extensive search in archives and heraldry source books, and following the recommendation by the Royal Academy of History that municipal symbols should be based on the coat of arms of former rulers, red, black and blue were selected as the flag colours. In Arecibimiento que hizo la Muy Noble y Muy leal Ciudad de Sevilla a la Católica Real Majestad del Rey D. Phelipe II nuestro señor, the chronicler Juan de Mal Lara relates the visit made by King Philip II to Seville on 1 May 1570. A great arch, named Hercules' Arch, was built at the Royal Gate to welcome the king; the arch was decorated with personifications of Seville and the villages placed under its jurisdiction; Paterna del Campo was represented by a woman wearing a red local dress (basquiña) and a blue tunic (ropa), holding a basket full of grapes in her right arm and with a jar of olive oil at her feet. Red and black recall the antique town of Tejada; red and blue are the main colours of the municipal coat of arms. Finally, the three colours are the main heraldic colours of the lords who owned the town.
Red represents the erection of the Royal villa of Paterna by Sancho IV in 1291, as the colour of Castile. Blue is taken from the arms of the lords of Federighi; Luís Federighi y Fantoni, a Knight of the Order of Calatrava of remote Florentine origin, purchased the town from Philip IV on 31 March 1660. On 3 July 1690 (Decree confirmed by Letters Patented on 11 May 1694), King Charles III made Antonio Federigui y Sol&oiacute;s, Fantoni y Cerón de Henestrosa, second lord of Paterna del Campo, Marquis of Paterna del Campo.
Red and black also represent the Hermandad de las Benditas Animas y del Sr. San Onofre (Brotherhood of the Holy Souls and of St. Onofre), based at the St. Francis convent of Seville, which was granted Paterna del Campo on 18 March 1720. Red is the main colour of the arms of Diego Joseph Fernández de Miranda y Gómez-Hidalgo, second Marquis of Premio Real, who purchased Paterna del Campo from the brotherhood on 22 December 1743. Red and black have also been used by the local football team since its foundation in the middle of the 20th century and by other local sports clubs.
Blue and red represent the infinity of the sky and of the fire and light impregnating the soil of the municipality. Finally, it was decided to place the three colours horizontally on the flag, with red on top and with a larger height, since this colour is the most represented on the arms of the former rulers of the town; the respective sizes of the black and blue stripes follow the same rule. The colours are prescribed as (this prescription does not appear in the Decree):
- Red: Pantone 032c;
- Black: Pantone Process Black Y;
- Blue: Pantone 072c.
The process for approval of the flag was initiated on 23 October 2003 by the Municipal Council.
[Municipal website]
The coat of arms of Paterna del Campo, adopted on 21 June 1989 by the Municipal Council and revised on 28 October 1991, as suggested on 14 June 1991 by the Royal Academy of History, is prescribed by Decree No. 174, adopted on 22 September 1992 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 7 November 1992 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 114, p. 9,347 (text). This was confirmed by a Resolution adopted on 30 November 2004 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 20 December 2004 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 246, pp. 28,986-29,002 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Azure eight bezants argent the one orled by the seven other, for Federigui, Marquis of Paterna del Campo, 2. Gules a tower with a central window or masoned sable surrounded by two branches of olive vert fructed of the same standing on a one-arched bridge argent masoned sable over waves argent and azure. The shield surmounted with a Royal modern (or, closed) crown.
The first quarter shows the arms of the Federigui, Marquis of Paterna del Campo. The tower represents the urban center of the town; built in mudéjar style, it surmounts the entrance gate located at the foot of the St. Bartolomew parish church. The bridge and waves represent the bridge built over river Tejada, which waters the plain of Paterna del Campo. The branches of olive recall that olive is the most important agricultural resource of the municipality.
[Símbolos de las Entidades Locales de Andalucía. Huelva (PDF file)]
The Royal Academy of History rejected a first proposal of coat of arms.
A medieval seal of Paterna del Campo, dated 1459, was reported by Julío González (Hispania, 1945). The circular field features a crenelated tower on a base with vegetation, surrounded left by a branch or a small tree and right by a charge, most probably a caldron representing the Guzmán of the house of Niebla and Medina Sidonia. In the proposed coat of arms, the charge on the right side of the shield was interpreted as a bridge over water, which is not acceptable because of its shape, its respective proportion with the tower, and its placement on the side of the tower. The arrangement of the seal was inverted to place the bridge below the tower and the tree was duplicated. The center of the shield was charged with the arms of the Federighi lineage, which purchased Paterna in the last years of the 17th century. Since Paterna used a proper seal in the 15th century, the modern coat of arms should reproduce it, without any alteration, and with adequate colours.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 1991. 188:3, 571]
Ivan Sache, 3 September 2016