Last modified: 2003-05-17 by ivan sache
Keywords: nantes | wave (blue) | cross (white) | ermines (black) | ship (yellow) |
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The oldest flags of Nantes are shown on portolanos dated XIVth century.
Angelino Dulcent's portolano (1339) shows a flag with four horizontal yellow stripes alternating with three horizontal white stripes and a blue stripe along the hoist charged with two white wavy stripes. The waves probably symbolize the river Loire.
On Jaffouda Cresquer's portolano (1375), the flag of Nantes has only six horizontal stripes, still alternating yellow and white, and two wavy blue stripes alternating with two wavy white stripes.
Ivan Sache, 7 January 2002
Two anonymous portolanos (now kept in the French National Library), from XVth and XVIth century, respectively, show for Nantes a square flag with a white cross and red, yellow, yellow, and blue quarters.
Ivan Sache, 7 January 2002
A plate by Joseph Roux (1766) shows for the first time a Breton black cross on the flag of Nantes. The cross is voided and each quarter is charged with five ermine spots placed 3 + 2.
At the same time, a variant is said to have had four ermine spots placed in a lozengy pattern in each quarter.
At the end of the XVIIIth century, the ermine spots in the first quarter of the flag seem to have been replaced by the arms of the city without their chief. The blazon is described as:
De gueules au navire d'or, aux voiles éployées d'hermine, voguant sur une mer de sinople, et au chef d'hermine (Gules, a vessel or with sails strewn with ermines, sailing on a sea vert, ermines in chief).
One of the first known flags of that period ha