The coat of arms of Cluj-Napoca is the heraldic symbol standing for the city of Cluj-Napoca,

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

. The city's first recorded coat of arms dates back to 1369, and since then, the coat of arms has mostly kept its features, until 1948. In 1970 a new coat of arms was designed by the communist authorities, inserting the original heraldic symbol. The current design dates from 1996, when the former mayor

Gheorghe Funar Gheorghe Funar (; born September 29, 1949 in Sânnicolau Mare, Timiș County, Socialist Republic of Romania) is a nationalist Romanian politician, who rose to fame as a controversial mayor of Cluj-Napoca between 1992 and 2004. Biography He became ...

organised a contest for the new symbol of the city.

Description and symbolism

The current shield of Cluj-Napoca is party per fess; yellow (instead of or), bearing a white (instead of

argent In heraldry, argent () is the tincture of silver, and belongs to the class of light tinctures called "metals". It is very frequently depicted as white and usually considered interchangeable with it. In engravings and line drawings, regions to ...

) Dacian Draco. The lower part is party per pale. The dexter part is of azure, bearing Goddess Athena –

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Rom ...

. The sinister part is of gules, bearing the Monument of the Memorandists. The shield is topped by a

mural crown A mural crown ( la, corona muralis) is a crown or headpiece representing city walls, towers, or fortresses. In classical antiquity, it was an emblem of tutelary deities who watched over a city, and among the Romans a military decoration. Later ...

with seven towers, which shows the city's status as a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

seat. This is the only element that respects the rule. Furthermore, the colors are the

national colors National colours are frequently part of a country's set of national symbols. Many states and nations have formally adopted a set of colours as their official "national colours" while others have ''de facto'' national colours that have become well ...

, which contradicts the committee's regulation on not using the Tricolor on the coat of arms of local authorities.

History

Cluj's traditional coat of arms and seal was first awarded in 1377 by king Louis I of Hungary. It represents three towers, a city wall with a gate in silver on a blue background. It was the coat of arms of Cluj until communist rulers modified it introducing other elements but preserving the three towers in the bottom field. The three towers coat of arms was abandoned by nationalist mayor Gheorghe Funar, in a move which did not respect the respective Romanian law. As of the subsequent mayors of Cluj-Napoca failed to reintroduce the traditional coat of arms as demanded by many heraldists, historians and civil activists.

References

*Ştefan Pascu, Viorica Marica – ''Clujul medieval'', Editura Meridiane, București, 1969 *Alicu Dorin – ''Cluj-Napoca, de la începuturi până azi'', Editura Clusium, Cluj-Napoca, 1995 *Bodea Gheorghe – ''Clujul vechi şi nou'', Cluj-Napoca, 2002
Coat of Arms of Cluj-Napoca, in Gazeta de Cluj

External links

Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca {{Heraldry-stub