Adding more evidence to the pile, here's a red-tiara version on the Vatican's own website from a page last updated in 2001: https://www.vatican.va/news_services

Adding more evidence to the pile, here's a red-tiara version on the Vatican's own website from a page last updated in 2001: https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/documents/corpo-diplomatico/corpo-diplomatico_internazionali_elenco_en.html https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/do... and the WaybackMachine confirms it's been there since at least Jan 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/20020112222602/http://www.vatican.va:80/news_services/press/documentazione/documents/corpo-diplomatico/corpo-diplomatico_internazionali_elenco_en.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020112222602/http://www.vatica... edit: Also the very first version of Wikipedia's Vatican City flag uploaded in 2005 also had a red tiara! It only stopped being red in 2013: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_the_Vatican_City.svg&dir=prev https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of... (look for the 1st upload in the history) (side note: the Vatican keeping the same URLs up for 2+ decades is a refreshing change of pace!)