Switzerland

2011
50 x 50 x 3,6 cm | 28 kg
Fused multilayer glass with inclusion of pigments

The flag of Switzerland originated from the desire to unite the three cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden, whose sovereignty had been recognized within the Holy Roman Empire but which were under threat from the Habsburgs.
It was in 1339, on the occasion of the battle of Laupen which opposed the confederates to the troops of Louis IV of Bavaria, that "all the soldiers were marked with the holy cross, white on a red background, because the freedom of the nation was for them a cause as sacred as the liberation of the Holy Land,” according to a local chronicle.
From then on, this flag continued to establish itself as the symbol of Swiss unity.
In 1815, a military regulation introduced the use of the red armband with a white cross for Confederate soldiers, but the time was not yet for centralism and most troops only swore loyalty to their cantonal crest. It was the Constitution of 1848 which definitively established the white cross on a red background as the official flag of Switzerland.