FIORENTINA: YESTERDAY, TODAY and TOMORROW
by: David Bini
In the early years of the twentieth century, the game of football took hold more and more in Italy and in every city new teams flourished ready to battle for the dominance of the city.
In Florence, in the 1920s, among the many teams and football sections, the Fiorentina Libertas Gymnastics Gym and the Florence Sports Club stood out for their results, divided by a deep rivalry, the two teams fought for city dominance without being able to aspire to bigger goals.
The desire to give the city of Florence a team that could represent it nationally, to compete with the greats of Italian football, prompted the Marquis Luigi Ridolfi to think of being able to achieve the merger between the two best football clubs in the city to give birth to a new team that would join forces to join the forces of national football.
On 29 August 1926, the Fiorentina Football Association was born, which combined the white and red colors of the two ancestors, the first official lily of our history was sewn on the new uniforms, a lily that represented union, compactness, desire to make the newborn Fiorentina grow by overcoming every city division, to bring up the name of the team that represented the city of Florence and all the Florentines.
After many years, thirty to be exact, Fiorentina won their first title of Champion of Italy and rose to the top of Italian football, crowning the dream of its founder Ridolfi, finally everyone looked to the Viola team as the strongest team in Italy!
Luigi RIDOLFI
The national title gave us the opportunity to compete on the prestigious international stage, where Fiorentina reached the final of the 1956-57 European Cup, the first Italian team to reach a European final, against the great Real Madrid.
Precisely in that season the Marquis Luigi Ridolfi, at the time a FIGC manager, again felt the need to give his Fiorentina, also involved in the international field, a more modern and recognizable image, which expressed its strength in the lily that represented it. .
It was Ridolfi himself who designed a new stylized lily which he brought to his friend and purple president Enrico Befani, convincing him of the need to renew the historic symbol, then personally delivered his design to the embroiderer to give birth to the new innovative lily.
This new lily made its debut on August 28, 1957, in the usual friendly match that was held every year at the beginning of the season between the outgoing and incoming Italian Champion team, a match that would be preceded by the symbolic delivery of the Italian championships to the new champions.
An extremely special evening on 28 August 1957 because the new lighting system of the S. Siro stadium in Milan was also inaugurated, Fiorentina captained by Sergio Cervato took the field against the AC Milan Rossoneri led by Nils Liedholm, showing off on the shirt the new and modern stylized lily designed by Ridolfi.
24-08-1957, Fiorentina’s Captain Sergio CERVATO with LIEDHOLM
This lily was used on the Fiorentina uniforms from 1957/58 until the 1966/67 season, in these ten seasons, with this logo Fiorentina has won 12 trophies of which 9 for the first team, this is the absolute lily most successful among the 21 different lilies used in our history.
This is the complete Palmares of the trophies won:
– Cup Winners’ Cup 1960-61
– Mitropa Cup 1965-66
– Italian Cup 1960-61
– Italian Cup 1965-66
– Italian-French Friendship Cup (by Nations) in 1959
– Italian-French Friendship Cup (by Nations) in 1960
– Cup of the Alps (by Nations) nel 1961
– Italian Cadet Champion in 1957-58
– Italian champion De Martino 1963-64
– Italian Junior Champion 1957-58
– Italian Junior Champion 1958-59
– Viareggio International Tournament in 1966
The stylized lily designed by Luigi RIDOLFI in 1957
A Giglio worn on the shirts by many prestigious purple champions, we mention some of them in alphabetical order:
ALBERTOSI, ANTONINHO, BENAGLIA, BENETTI, BERTINI, BIZZARRI, BRIZI, CARPANESI, CASTELLETTI, CERVATO, CHIAPPELLA, CHIARUGI, DA COSTA, DE SISTI, FERRANTE, GONFIANTINI, GRATTON, HAMRIN, JULINHO, LAZZOTTI, LOJACONO, MAGNINI, MALATRASI, MARCHESI, MASCHIO, MERLO, MICHELI, MILAN, MILANI, MONTUORI, ORLANDO, ORZAN, PETRIS, PIROVANO, PRINI, RIMBALDO, ROGORA, SARTI, SEGATO, SEMINARIO, SCARAMUCCI, ROBOTTI, TOROS, VIRGILI.
Today Fiorentina chooses again to renew its image by looking at the past to project itself towards the future, bringing this lily back to the hearts of the players, after 65 years, our company demonstrates that you can make a restyling of your logo without upsetting the values that it has always represented, but can be renewed by proudly respecting its history.
