One of looking at this is that European banners, coats of arms, etc, are traditionally defined in writing (often using a domain-specific language called a blazon), and then compiled to a visual form by a banner maker. This compilation is intended to be reversible -- one goal is to be able to look up the written form in a book of heraldry based on the visual appearance -- but, just like compiling code, is not a one-to-one process; the same blazon can result in various visual representations, and which one is selected is often an aesthetic consideration.
Not speaking Italian, and not having done the historical digging, I don't know the original written definition of the Vatican flag, but it looks like it's something like "banner divided in yellow (towards the flagpole) and white, with the white part centered with the crossed keys surmounted by the tiara," where the "crossed keys" and "tiara" are imports of external symbology. In this case, the question concerns the tiara [1] -- which, like most physical tiaras, has a hole running through it that appears neither red nor white when viewed as it is represented on the flag.
While it is certainly reasonable for the Vatican to have preferences on the detailed representation of this flag, both as-drawn versions are faithful representations of the blazon, both allow looking up the blazon from the visual representation, and both are, frankly, fine.
[1] https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/do...
Not speaking Italian, and not having done the historical digging, I don't know the original written definition of the Vatican flag, but it looks like it's something like "banner divided in yellow (towards the flagpole) and white, with the white part centered with the crossed keys surmounted by the tiara," where the "crossed keys" and "tiara" are imports of external symbology. In this case, the question concerns the tiara [1] -- which, like most physical tiaras, has a hole running through it that appears neither red nor white when viewed as it is represented on the flag.
While it is certainly reasonable for the Vatican to have preferences on the detailed representation of this flag, both as-drawn versions are faithful representations of the blazon, both allow looking up the blazon from the visual representation, and both are, frankly, fine.
[1] https://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/do...