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Sovereign Military Order of Malta - Military Flags

Last modified: 2008-12-26 by rob raeside
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18th century Military flags of the order of St. John

The images below are from a photo of A.VELLA, depicted on chart no.1 in Capt. Joseph M. WISMAYER: “The fleet of the order of St.John 1530-1798” (see source details below).

Battalion of the galleys (papal colours)

  image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008

Description of flag:
It is a white square flag with the coat of arms of Pope Clemens XIII (1758-1769) in its centre.
Description of coat of arms:
It is a quarterly divided shield. The 1st quarter is showing the arms of the Order of St. John, a white Greek cross in a red field. The 2nd and third quarter are showing a silver (= white) tower in a blue field. The 4th quarter is showing a silver (= white) field with 3 red sinister bendy lines. The inescutcheon is showing a black double headed eagle in a golden (= yellow) field. The shield is superimposed on two crossed golden (= yellow) keys and is topped by a golden (= yellow) tiara.
Klaus-Michael Schneider
, 24 October 2008


 Battalion of the galleys (orders colours)

  image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008

Description of flag:
It is a white square flag with the coat of arms of the Order of St. John in its centre. The shield is topped by a crown, lined black and is superimposing two crossed bundles of three palm leaves each in natural colour.
Klaus-Michael Schneider
, 24 October 2008


Men-of-War battalion (orders colours)

  image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008

It is a pink square flag with the coat of arms of the Order of St. John in its centre. The shield is topped by a crown, lined black and is superimposing two crossed black anchors.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008


Men-of-War battalion (grandmasters colours)

  image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008

It is a white square flag with the coat of arms of the order’s Grandmaster Manuel Pinto de Fonseca (1741-1773) in its centre. The shield is topped by a crown, lined black.
Description of coat of arms:
It is a quarterly divided shield. 1st and 4th quarter are showing the order’s arms. 2nd and 3rd quarter are showing a silver (= white) field with five red lying crescents, ordered two above one above two.
Klaus-Michael Schneider
, 24 October 2008

Source:
All images are based on a photo of A.VELLA, depicted on chart no.1 in Capt. Joseph M. WISMAYER: “The fleet of the order of St. John 1530-1798”, Midsea Books, Valetta(?) 1997; ISBN 99909-75-30-2. The primary source given there is the archives of Dominicans. Though you couldn’t recognize all details of the papal arms, I was able to recognize the arms as those of Clemens XIII (Wikipedia.org). All images probably have been made about 1760, the time of Clemens XIII, or a little bit later. The standards were held by naval ensigns. Their uniforms are also of mid 18th century style. As all flags are held by ensigns, they might be “squarish” instead of squares. (Ensign here is not a flag but a person having a military rank like German “Fähnrich”, i.e. the flag bearer).
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 October 2008