Who is credited with the concept of Brazil's republican flag?

Raimundo Teixeira Mendes is credited with the concept of Brazil’s republican flag. He proposed replacing the imperial coat of arms with a blue celestial globe and the positivist motto Ordem e Progresso.

The design was developed collectively after Brazil became a republic in November 1889. Teixeira Mendes worked with Miguel Lemos, Manuel Pereira Reis, and the painter Décio Villares. Their flag preserved the green field and yellow rhombus of the imperial flag while introducing republican symbols.

The new flag was officially adopted on 19 November 1889, four days after the Proclamation of the Republic. Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca accepted the design after rejecting an earlier proposal by Ruy Barbosa that was strongly inspired by the United States flag. This explains why Fonseca is sometimes mistakenly described as the designer.

The blue disk depicts the sky over Rio de Janeiro on 15 November 1889 and contains stars representing Brazil’s federal units. The motto comes from the philosophy of Auguste Comte, whose positivism influenced several leaders of the new republic.