ITALIA SOCIETÀ DI NAVIGAZIONE À VAPORE.

Klaus-Michael Schneider’s variant has a green-fimbriated cross and a simple red serifed I on the white star. Rosanoski considers a possible link between this version and German ownership, but rejects a neat ownership-based explanation for a later blue canton: Lloyds already shows blue in 1904, before the sale.

Lloyds 1912 shows a yellow flag with a black cross and blue canton bearing a white six-pointed star. Its red central character looks like a mirrored 6 or a handwritten capital I. A May 1905 sailing schedule supplies another I116 image.

Another pamphlet supports a yellow funnel and dark-blue canton matching the cross, consistent with Bonsor’s blue cross. Rosanoski suggests that dark blue could explain both the apparent colour similarity and the cross’s fimbriation. Bonsor calls the character I, though Rosanoski finds it reminiscent of a written T.

The Ancona illustration leaves the cross colour and fimbriation uncertain. Jan Mertens reads the canton as blue and the cross as black and fimbriated, with an elaborate I. He speculates that the six-pointed star might relate to Italy’s five-pointed star or have religious significance, without establishing either explanation. Jarig Bakker’s I280 replaced his I117 rendition in October 2006 by changing the character in the star.