diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index 93ecd728ab..cea3835c8f 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -160,10 +160,11 @@ Colors may also be given as numbers between 0 and 255; these use ANSI
 your terminal supports it, you may also specify 24-bit RGB values as
 hex, like `#ff0ab3`.
 +
-The accepted attributes are `bold`, `dim`, `ul`, `blink`, and `reverse`.
-The position of any attributes with respect to the colors (before, after,
-or in between), doesn't matter. Specific attributes may be turned off
-by prefixing them with `no` or `no-` (e.g., `noreverse`, `no-ul`, etc).
+The accepted attributes are `bold`, `dim`, `ul`, `blink`, `reverse`, and
+`italic`.  The position of any attributes with respect to the colors
+(before, after, or in between), doesn't matter. Specific attributes may
+be turned off by prefixing them with `no` or `no-` (e.g., `noreverse`,
+`no-ul`, etc).
 +
 For git's pre-defined color slots, the attributes are meant to be reset
 at the beginning of each item in the colored output. So setting
diff --git a/color.c b/color.c
index a22d835842..b6933a16fe 100644
--- a/color.c
+++ b/color.c
@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@ static int parse_attr(const char *name, size_t len)
 #define ATTR(x, val, neg) { (x), sizeof(x)-1, (val), (neg) }
 		ATTR("bold",      1, 22),
 		ATTR("dim",       2, 22),
+		ATTR("italic",    3, 23),
 		ATTR("ul",        4, 24),
 		ATTR("blink",     5, 25),
 		ATTR("reverse",   7, 27)
diff --git a/color.h b/color.h
index 2d0507ff7e..e6f82cc3eb 100644
--- a/color.h
+++ b/color.h
@@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ struct strbuf;
  *
  * The space for attributes is also slightly overallocated, as
  * the negation for some attributes is the same (e.g., nobold and nodim).
- * We also allocate space for 6 attributes (even though we have only 5).
+ *
+ * We allocate space for 6 attributes.
  */
 #define COLOR_MAXLEN 70
 
diff --git a/t/t4026-color.sh b/t/t4026-color.sh
index 2065752ff9..13690f7c31 100755
--- a/t/t4026-color.sh
+++ b/t/t4026-color.sh
@@ -60,8 +60,9 @@ test_expect_success 'long color specification' '
 
 test_expect_success 'absurdly long color specification' '
 	color \
-	  "#ffffff #ffffff bold nobold dim nodim ul noul blink noblink reverse noreverse" \
-	  "[1;2;4;5;7;22;24;25;27;38;2;255;255;255;48;2;255;255;255m"
+	  "#ffffff #ffffff bold nobold dim nodim italic noitalic
+	   ul noul blink noblink reverse noreverse" \
+	  "[1;2;3;4;5;7;22;23;24;25;27;38;2;255;255;255;48;2;255;255;255m"
 '
 
 test_expect_success '0-7 are aliases for basic ANSI color names' '