Gonfalone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The gonfalon or gonfalone (from the early Italian confalone), is a long flag or banner, often pointed, swallow-tailed, or with several streamers, and suspended from a crossbar. It was first adopted by Italian medieval communes, and, later, by local Guilds, Corporations and Districts.
It can be designed with a badge or coat of arms, or ornamented with a fancy design. Today every Italian comune (municipality) has a gonfalone sporting its coat of arms.
The gonfalon has long been used for ecclesiastical ceremonies and processions. The Papal gonfalon appears on Vatican City postage stamps and coins during the interregnum between the death of one pope and the election of his successor.
[edit] Baseball
- See also Khorugv, sometimes translated as Gonfalon
In Anglophone tradition it is a seldom-used word, kept alive by baseball historians due to its presence in a poem called Baseball's Sad Lexicon.
The poem was written by Franklin Pierce Adams, a New York Giants fan and sportswriter for the New York Evening Mail. The poem first appeared in the July 18, 1910, edition of the paper. It was about the 1908 pennant race in which the Chicago Cubs won the National League pennant, beating out the Giants in dramatic fashion after a "boneheaded" play by Fred Merkle. The poem contains this phrase...
- Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble
...which in plain English means that the Chicago Cubs of that year continually spoiled the Giants' chances (or "burst their bubble" as people say nowadays) for the pennant which is emblematic of the league championship.
