Resumen:El arte de vestir prendas sagradas para celebrar ritos religiosos constituye un importante elemento de la liturgia. En los primeros siglos de la Cristiandad, la vestimenta litúrgica no era diferente de la seglar y sólo a partir del siglo XI llegó a Roma desde el norte de Europa la costumbre de usar vestiduras para el clero hechas con materiales preciosos. A partir de ese momento, los materiales preciosos y las imágenes llegaron a significar relativamente una constante en las vestimentas litúrgicas occidentales. El presente ensayo describe - a partir de algunos ejemplos existentes o conocidos a través de documentos - el papel de las figuras de imágenes en las vestimentas sagradas durante la Edad Media y el Renacimiento, tratando de explicar la relación entre la imagen y el espacio donde aparece, el cuerpo, gestos litúrgicos, mensajes religiosos y políticos y su función en relación a su identidad, así como mostrar aspectos de la continuidad o discontinuidad del papel de las imágenes usadas en el ámbito litúrgico desde la Edad Media hasta el Renacimiento.

THIS ARTICLE aims to analyse the presence of representations of the sacred on liturgical vestments from the late Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, attempting to identify the perdurance or change in meaning and function of the images in relation to liturgical rites and gestures, patronage, religious message, and relation to the body of the person wearing it and the eyes of those watching him. The images are not studied here in terms of attribution, but as phenomena capable of conveying different messages – now religious, now ideological/political – which could create a relation between the one wearing the vestment and the person or persons who gave or made it, thanks to a code constructed through the medium of sacred images.

To this end, I have chosen to review a number of examples, more or less well known, of liturgical vesture – still existing or now lost but known through documentary or iconographical sources – which have in common the presence of figures or illustrated scenes, attempting to explicate the connection between the historical, religious, or political context of the production and choice of images, their placement within the space of the garment, and the function or destination of the vestment. To clarify these topics, I shall begin with a historical overview of the use of images on liturgical vestments from the early centuries of Christianity up to the twelfth century; I then narrow my focus to the use of images in the Late Middle Ages before moving on to concentrate on Florentine production from the mid-fifteenth century to the early decades of the sixteenth.

Before analysing the development of the illustrated decoration of liturgical vestments in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, we should briefly reconstruct the origins of the topics to be discussed. In particular: the relation between the preciousness of the materials used and the decorations on the vestments, the earliest appearance and development of illustrations to decorate canonicals, and the custom of offering the gift of a vestment to create a personal bond.

The fascination with rich figurative ornamentation of liturgical vestments arose in Italy during the time of the investiture controversy and the Gregorian reform, emerging as a function of the complex project of renewal aimed at unifying the western Church under the rule of a pope-monarch.2 Within the sphere of this new political-religious construct, the «figurative language of power» worked out in the imperial Church of western Europe was assimilated also by Rome, where from the beginning ecclesiastical clothing had been austere.3 As is well known, Christian sacred vestments derived from secular Roman garments, and for many centuries any form of distinction between liturgical and secular attire was frowned upon.4 The spread of barbarian customs through the Italian peninsula soon led to a more pronounced distinction between secular and liturgical clothing, since the clergy remained faithful to the Roman tradition, rejecting the new Franco-Germanic garments (as just one example, breeches) being adopted by the Latin people. Moreover, the progressive militarization of society going on at the same time, especially beyond the Alps, spurred churchmen to adopt clerical clothing – since it was recognizable – for wear even outside their sanctuaries.5 The principal liturgical vestments thus derive from elements common to Roman clothing: the alb from the tunicatalarismanicata, the chasuble from the poenula, the dalmatic from the tunic called a dalmatica, and the cope from the ancient cloak called a lacerna.6

During the Carolingian period a first attempt was made to regulate canonicals in terms of colour, shape, and who wore what; in particular, at a time when bishops were gaining more prestige, it was their attire that underwent the greatest change, becoming more sumptuous.7 The opulence of vestments was northern in origin: in a letter written in AD 801, Alcuin warned the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was planning a visit to the court of Charlemagne, not to let the clergymen wear clothing of silk and gold, as this would be intolerable for the sovereign.8 In the course of the ninth century, when the political and administrative role of bishops was strengthening, the pomp stigmatized by Charlemagne took hold in episcopal clothing, while a series of liturgical commentaries appeared in which the use of gold, embroidery, and brilliant colours began to be rationalized by a figurative reading of the Old Testament. The description of the robes worn by Aaron and his sons (Exodus 28) was cited to justify the richness of the vestments with the need to show the virtues of the priests also through the colours, shape, and materials of their clothing.9 As early as the end of the sixth century, of course, Gregory the Great had furnished in his Regula pastoralis an exegetical and typological reading of Jewish priestly vestments, saying that «the priest’s garments» represent «his good works».10 In the eleventh century, the sumptuous style of vesture spread to Rome, as can be seen in mosaics and frescoes of that period, where vestments made with

ornate fabrics decorated with embroidered strips and panels are evident. Inventories of European sacristies, the Liber pontificalis, and surviving specimens of canonicals testify to the circulation in religious circles during the eighth and ninth centuries of precious silk fabrics of Byzantine, Egyptian, or Syrian origin, often arriving in the form of gifts.11 Perception of the precious nature of these silks among the people of that time can be deduced from the role these played as diplomatic gifts in foreign affairs between the emperor and the Latin West and their frequent use to wrap the most precious holy relics, a circumstance which in numerous cases has enabled their preservation to our day.12

The highly evocative decorations of these textiles, often involving heraldry, drew on motifs from the Greek and Sasanian tradition in the repertory of images and the representation of the power of the emperor: fantastic animals borrowed from classical and Persian mythology (such as the simurg), peacocks, eagles, elephants, lions, winged horses, and hunting or fighting scenes enclosed in beaded roundels

(rotae) are the most frequent.13 A famous example is the samite used to make the so-called chasuble of Saint Albuin in the Diocesan Museum of Bressanone, characterized by mighty imperial eagles on a royal purple ground (Figure 1).14 This is a decoration symbolically associated with the power and superiority of the Byzantine emperor,15 and yet, precisely by virtue of the sacred nature of the basileus, the man chosen by God to rule the empire and the entire oikoumene – according to the ideology formulated by Eusebius in the fourth century – this decoration would not have seemed inappropriate to celebrate the Christian liturgy, emblemizing the role of the bishop and the figure of Christ rex regnantium.16

Among the textiles in circulation, many were decorated with figured designs, organized for the most part in webs of roundels containing narrative scenes or images (Figure 2). One area where figured fabrics – woven of linen on a loom or worked in wool as tapestries – were widespread was Egypt, where the practice of decorating tunics with fabrics featuring figures or ornate geometric designs dated back to the Eighteenth Dynasty.17 In Coptic society, images decorated tunics, shawls, boots, and cloaks in the form of clavi, orbicoli, tabulae, and bands. Among the most frequent subjects were hunting scenes, horsemen, shepherds, dancers, cherubs, Nereids, Hellenic divinities, and in the Christian world people praying, portraits, representations of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and episodes taken from the Old and New Testaments. At least from the fifth century, fabrics with sacred scenes were used not only for making liturgical vestments but also in the sumptuous clothing worn by the wealthier classes, to the point that Bishop Asterius of Amasea stigmatized this custom.18 The Liber pontificalis and other contemporary sources from the eight and ninth centuries contain numerous reports of vestes illustrated with sacred images (woven or embroidered), bearing witness to their spread into the Latin West, with a broad repertory of figures and episodes drawn from the Scriptures.19 The arrival of figured textiles from Byzantium followed the various phases of the iconoclastic controversy; scholars have noted an oscillation in the number of donations of figured silks listed in the Liber pontificalis, and in particular a sort of decrease in those with a sacred subject during the period between the two phases of Byzantine Iconoclasm (750–815), while most of the Byzantine textiles recorded in the West had secular decorations such as vegetable and animal motifs or equestrian and hunting scenes.20 With the end of the iconoclastic controversy and the revival of the veneration of icons, the adoption of sacred topics for decorating textiles was limited to the liturgical sphere, while in the early ninth century, Nikephoros, patriarch of Constantinople, thundered against the presence of animal figures in churches, especially on cloth placed on the altar, urging the use of such fabrics only for clothing.21

In the twelfth century the liturgy began to be enriched with elements aimed at arousing in the faithful a sensitivity to the Christian mystery: first the celebrant’s gestures, which translated his words into visible action; then vestments, which took on an important role, indicating by their various shapes the religious hierarchy in

the celebration of the Mass; and finally the unfolding of liturgical time through the use of different colours.22 In the thirteenth century, the need to associate a mystical meaning to every element of the liturgy imparted a symbolic role to vestments too, as demonstrated by the allegorical reading given for them by Guillaume Durand in the Rationale divinorum officiorum.23

Since «les images rendent présent ce qui est absent, visible ce qui est invisible, donnent à voir quelque chose qui peut ne pas même exister»,24 the presence of sacred images on canonicals became a constant, together with the preciousness of their materials. As for any representation of the sacred, the images were chosen according to criteria aimed at amplifying the significance of the liturgical moment and at rendering recognizable, by means of emphasis, the role of the donor or patron of the object.25 As opposed to a painting cycle or any other «fixed» furnishing, an illustrated vestment is destined for a use that provides for movement and thus for differing points of observation. Moreover, it has a relation to the body wearing it and to liturgical time; as a result, the iconographical program has to take into account the message to be transmitted in relation to the words and liturgical gestures of the officiants. From the semantic standpoint, the message of the images and the vestments has two targets: the celebrant and clergy taking part in the service, for whom the vestments and images have a precise symbolical meaning and a «close-up» observation point; and the faithful attending the Mass, for whom the vestment becomes a sort of sensory amplifier of the rite even if they cannot see all its detail.

The specificity of the textile medium for liturgy-related images lies in the fact that figural images cover a real living body and move with it in space. Kapustka and Woodfin have explained well this aspect: «the textile, being in this context simultaneously a fabric, a form, and a metaphor, enabled participants in liturgical actions to see through surfaces and images and to bring opposite notions together: disguise and revelation, delimitation and transparency, hierarchical subordination and general invitation to witness».26 Following the officiant’s gestures, the vestments in turn stretched out making the figures visible, or folded showing part of them and concealing the rest. This helped to express the concept of divine presence/absence during the liturgy of mass. Likewise, the officiant wearing sacred images personified and literally embodied them, visually magnifying the concept of substantial presence in the Eucharist. While painted images usually need a frame to delimit the sacred from the material/earthly space,27 woven and embroidered figures had their shifting limen in the vestment itself, which encompasses a precious and consecrated space. Liturgical vestments, with their figures, ornaments, and splendour, played a crucial part in the synaesthetic experience of the solemn rite, together with words, gestures, songs, candles, incense smokes. Clearly, such a complex semantic construction was addressed to the faithful, foremost among them the clerics themselves, who were often the only ones capable of understanding the theological references conveyed by liturgical vestments.

In liturgical vestments, the architecture of the composition, in other words the placement of the images in the space of the garment as it is worn, immediately takes on major importance. This is evident in one of the earliest masterpieces of gold embroidery in Europe: the extraordinary Sternenmantel which Henry II of Saxony donated to Bamberg Cathedral after receiving it as a diplomatic gift from Ismahel, duke of Apulia, in 1018 (Figure 3).28 The original decoration was organized so that the spatial arrangement of the ornamental motifs (cosmological, Christian, epigraphic) was an indispensable element for decoding the message: the glorification of the divine power that, reigning in the heavens, ruled the earthly world and protected the role of the emperor – a protection, what is more, that had to be visually obvious in the very act of wearing the cloak by the ecclesiastic, who in turn placed himself under the emperor’s protection. The central position of the Maiestas Domini, the arrangement of astrological symbols – in particular the two hemispheres that assumed antipodal positions once the cope was put on –, and the placement of the two inscriptions, as though to divide the earthly space from that of the divine, as David Ganz has shown, are evidence of the importance of space in the decoration of this type of object and transform a regal cloak (this was its original function, even though it was never worn by Henry II) into a sacred garment that recalls the cloak of Abraham (Wisdom 18:24).29

The central role taken by images in Christian worship in the thirteenth century and the need to ‘see’ during the rite, made evident in the elevation of the Host after the confirmation of the Real Presence decreed by Lateran Council IV in 1215 – which would be followed by establishment of the feast of Corpus Christi in 1264 –, are elements that reflect and are made manifest in the decoration of canonicals, which increasingly became a real liturgical narrative space.30 This happened undoubtedly also because of perfection of the techniques of execution; the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mark the blossoming of needlework ‘painting’ in various European art centres and the primacy over all of them of opus anglicanum.31 The effects that these sacred images, glittering with silk, gold, pearls, and gems, were meant to arouse in the faithful cannot avoid bringing to mind the role assigned to images by Gregory the Great in his famous letter to Bishop Secundinus, that of moving souls to religious

feeling, and at the same time to the significance of light and precious materials in the thought of Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis.32 The opulent embroidered vestments for Eucharistic celebration were adopted also by the mendicant orders, which could seem to be a contradiction if we do not take into account the fact that, as Saint Thomas Aquinas maintained, the sumptuousness does not glorify the celebrant wearing it but his sacred ministry.33 This justification seems a bit weak to us today, given that the most precious vestments which have come down to us often bear heraldic and iconographic elements enabling identification of the patron or the donor.

Because of its shape and use – worn in processions and for incensing during recitation of the Divine Office – the cope became a prime space for images, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries unfurled in the form of narrative cycles. On copes designed to be worn the sequence of images usually presented the most important figures or episodes around the neckline, along the front opening (aurifrisium), and in the centre of the back, in the portion that more or less fell from the shoulders to the ankles (Figures 4–5). The fulcrum of the narrative, that is to say the element which was intended to be most easily visible, was placed in the central section of this axis, where among other things the fabric lay flat, making the images easier to read. Analysing a group of copes in opus anglicanum with complex sequences of images, where the episodes or figures are laid out on two or three registers separated by frames, we note that right in this position appear key Christological scenes such as the Crucifixion (Ascoli Piceno, the Vatican, Madrid, Syon, Bologna, Steeple Aston, San Giovanni in Laterano, and in the drawing by Pietro Santi Bartoli of a lost cope from the Treasury of St Peter’s)34 or the Nativity (Toledo, Pienza, Vic).35 The images placed along the central axis are sometimes detached from the logical or chronological order of the remaining narrative, but they are pictures easily recognized by the faithful and frequent in popular devotion, often featuring the Virgin Mary, such as the Virgin and Child Enthroned (Ascoli, the Vatican) or the Coronation of the Virgin (the Vatican, Syon, Steeple Aston, Toledo, Vic, and the lost cope from the Treasury of St Peter’s), and the Annunciation (Madrid).36 Along the sides, in the part of the cope that falls from the shoulders towards the front, we often find Marian episodes like the Assumption of the Virgin (Toledo, Pienza, Syon, the lost St Peter’s cope) or figures of saints.37

One key aspect to consider in order to comprehend these cycles of images is how their appearance changed in accordance with the officiant’s gestures. When a cope was worn, some scenes would be concealed by the fabric folds, and would become visible only as a result of certain gestures. It would be interesting to understand

whether there was a specific planning which related the visibility of images with liturgical gestures and their sequence.

Even though we cannot make generalizations, we must observe that this way of arranging the decoration and iconographical elements developed between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that is to say contemporaneous with the birth and spread of liturgical and worship phenomena like the growing importance of preaching, the spread of sacred theatre, the enormous rise of the veneration and exposition of relics, the emergence of the veneration of saints and the Virgin Mary, the spread of confraternities, and the custom of processions.38 All of these developments bear witness to the heightened devotional spirit of the time, manifested also in the presence of easily recognizable and emotionally compelling images as the fulcrum of iconographical programs destined for liturgical wear, and in particular copes, utilized precisely for processions.

When opus anglicanuslost its primacy among techniques – it was the needlecraft most highly in demand among European popes and cardinals in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries – and sumptuous Italian worked fabrics began to be preferred, just as the Gothic polyptych yielded ground to the square Renaissance altarpiece with a predella, the figural ornamentation of copes moved to the inner lining of the hood, which broadened to take the shape of a shield, and along the orphreys.39 Complex narrative cycles were abandoned in favour, especially in Italy, of decorations organized in a regular pattern: on copes, inside the hood and the orphrey; on chasubles, on the cross and orphreys; and on dalmatics, inside the rectangular frames of the two panels (bruste) on the front and back.40

The chasuble, as it is worn by the priest during Mass, is connected with the gestures of the Eucharist. Since the Mass was celebrated with the officiant facing the altar, the decoration of the back orphrey was what the faithful saw during the consecration, while in the key moment of the Elevation, the Host raised above the celebrant’s head was precisely aligned with it. The chasuble’s figured ornamentation also is contained in the front orphrey and the rectangular patch that from the fifteenth century was applied to the front at chest height.41 The question arises, given that for a long time the rite of the Mass – except in the moment of the Eucharist – was not easy to see for the faithful, if the primary audience for the images on chasubles was, even more than the faithful, the clergy themselves and the authorities who participated in the Mass from ‘privileged’ positions.

In the fifteenth century, when together with veneration for Mary that of the saints too – celebrated as protectors of towns, social groups, guilds, or namesakes of donors and patrons – took firm hold, the orphreys of chasubles and copes began to be filled with figures of saints standing within niches or sitting on thrones. Their role was generally to recall the titular saints of the church or of its altars, but also to refer to the name of the patron or donor. On bruste (rectangular panels) of dalmatics, on orphrey crosses of chasubles, and on hoods of copes – in other words wherever the illustrations could unfold within fairly large four-sided frames – were placed episodes from the life of Christ, Mary, or the saints.42 In Solemn High Masses, the images represented on the individual vestments of a set had to be related to each other, involving in the narration not just one ‘body’ but all the participants in the service. The unifying element was provided by the fabric used to make the entire set – chasuble, dalmatic (deacon), tunicle (subdeacon), stoles, maniples, burse for the corporal, and cope – while the embroidered or woven images varied. An example is the Vanzi set (Orvieto), embroidered following a design by Sandro Botticelli and Bartolomeo di Giovanni and made up of a dalmatic, tunicle, and chasuble. The chasuble presents the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John in the orphrey cross on the front and a series of saints on the front and back orphreys, including Saint Peter of Parenzo and Saint Costanzo and Saint Brizio, patron saints of Orvieto. Dalmatic and tunicle each present four bruste with Gospel episodes, while the sleeves bear figures of saints and apostles. The images on the dalmatic and tunicle follow a chronological order of the episodes which is read by placing them next to each other (the tunicle on the left and the dalmatic on the right) and top to bottom: Annunciation, Adoration of the Shepherds (tunicle front, Figure 6), Epiphany, Presentation in the Temple (dalmatic front, Figure 7); Pentecost, Assumption of the Virgin (tunicle back), Resurrection, Ascension (dalmatic back). Evidently, the application of the bruste to the back of the dalmatic and tunicle was not carried out properly following the chronological order of the episodes, but it is clear that the intent of the iconographical program was to show stories from the infancy of Christ when the officiants were facing the faithful and episodes after his death when they were turned towards the altar.43

The motives for donating liturgical vestments stem from two desires, often both present at the same time: to manifest or reinforce a tie between the giver and the receiver of the gift – a tie that presumably involved loyalty and support from the recipient towards the donor – and to keep the donor’s memory alive. In the case of a gift to a bishop or even a pope, the recipient was further endowed with meaningful and valuable political recognition.44 In the fifteenth century, the building up of bonds by means of precious embroideries and textiles became much more frequent, transforming liturgical vestments into instruments of identity. In citing examples, we shall limit ourselves to the Florentine context in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Here, figured embroidery in or nué flourished, reaching very high levels of excellence in the production of technically complex fabrics. At the same time, the manufacture of much simpler figured textiles developed, providing economical substitutes for the more expensive gold and silk embroideries, and these bear witness to the widespread use of sacred images also on less luxurious vestments.45 Within this sphere of different types of production, a primary role was played by the

most illustrious artists, who were asked to provide designs for embroideries and figured textiles; these constituted, together with their work in the ‘major’ arts, an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the serial production of figured textiles.46 The luxurious Florentine textile production – a powerful driving force for the city’s economy – achieved such a great importance in the fifteenth century as to be, as it were, a reference point for the identity of the community. This appears evident from the constant reference to precious brocades in painting of that period,47 but also in episodes like the magnificent commission for the set of liturgical vestments known as the Parato di San Giovanni– the summit of excellence reached by the textile industry – which the merchants’ guild, in other words, the economic elite of Florence, made for the Baptistery, the place of worship which represents «la sintesi di una serie di valori condivisi (civici e religiosi, ecclesiastici e laici), che tengono insieme la collettività cittadina.»48 An example of how, in the middle of the fifteenth century, a liturgical set could serve to make visible diplomatic alliances between the city’s institutions is the one – known only from documentary sources – which the abbess of the Santa Verdiana convent, Piera de’ Medici, had her nuns embroider for the bishop of Florence, the Dominican (and future saint) Antonino Pierozzi, including in it a precious cope bearing the embroidered figure of Saint Zenobius, his predecessor on the episcopal throne of Florence and a patron saint of the city.49 The set is part of a complex play of gifts which the very capable abbess – a member of a minor branch of the Medici family – used to win the protection of Giovanni de’ Medici, the son of Cosimo and future prior of the city, and of Bishop Antonino himself. The cope was intended for wear by the bishop during the procession, in full splendour, that on the feast day of Saint Verdiana in 1452 carried a precious relic to the convent bearing her name: an arm of the saint, lifted from her body – which was preserved in the dependent territory outside the city walls – thanks to Antonino’s intercession. With this public ceremony, the relic conveyed an important recognition for the convent, since it was a gift, together with a sumptuous reliquary, from Giovanni mediated by the bishop.50 The set demonstrated to the city the convent’s gratitude to the giver Giovanni, honoured Bishop Antonino by associating with him a key element in the identity of the diocese of Florence like Zenobius, and at the same time put on display the complex system of interdependence and protection enjoyed by that religious house.51 The desire to link visually, through images on vestments, personalities, and institutions, was

not limited just to figural embroidery. At mid-century, a company of Florentine merchants, headed by Tommaso Spinelli, appeared to specialize in figured velvet, an extremely elitist production because very few weavers were technically capable of making it. Among Spinelli’s clients were many cardinals and a pope: Nicholas V (born Tommaso Parentucelli), for whom references in the inventories of St Peter’s survive attesting to his possession of some liturgical sets made of velvet brocade with the image of Saint Thomas.52 Remarkably, the Bargello museum holds the set made for the pope on the occasion of the canonization of Saint Bernardino of Siena

on Pentecost of the Jubilee year 1450.53 The velvet used for the set features large polylobate leaves containing the scene of Christ Walking on the Water in Front of Peter (Figure 8), an episode that refers to the figure of the pope, while the hood of the cope is made of velvet illustrated with Doubting Thomas, an allusion to Nicholas V’s Christian name (Figure 9). While the set is unique in terms of the actual artefact, documents show that this type of velvet was also used on other occasions. Tommaso Spinelli himself – whose palace was located in the Santa Croce district – donated to the church of Santa Croce, where he held the patronage of a chapel, a set of velvet brocade vestments with the woven image of Doubting Thomas54 and a series of pieces of the same fabric.55 We also know, from a drawing attributed to Pietro Scacciati (c.1710) which was in the John Talman collection, that this same church once held a now lost chasuble made of a figured fabric (probably also in this case velvet brocade) with the image of Saint Francis, complete with an orphrey embroidered with stories of Saint Anthony Abbot (Figure 10).56 In the drawing, the chasuble bears the coat of arms of the noble Castellani family, resident in Santa Croce and patrons of the chapel frescoed with stories of Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Nicholas by Agnolo Gaddi in the transept of that church.57 These two pieces of evidence lead us to suppose that, by the gift of highly prized historiated velvet vestments – the pope’s preferred fabric – the donors were celebrating not only their patron saints but above all the social and economic status achieved by their families in the church where they worshipped.

From the middle of the fifteenth century, the custom grew of inserting the family arms, mottoes, and heraldic emblems into the design of luxurious fabrics utilized for secular purposes, which were sometimes also used for liturgical vestments and hangings on the occasion of votive gifts.58 During this same period there was a production specifically devoted to liturgical vestments commissioned by the highest ranks of ecclesiastics: Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere) ordered from the most celebrated textile producers of the time (Venice and Florence, and maybe

Milan) some velvet brocades in which the usual ‘pomegranate’ or ‘pineapple’ motifs were accompanied by the oak branches and acorns of his family’s coat of arms (Figure 11).59 Attributed to the Florentine workshops is the worked velvet used to make the set donated in 1526 to Cortona Cathedral by Margherita Passerini on behalf of her brother Silvio, a cardinal and confidant of two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. Leo named him a cardinal, with San Lorenzo in Lucina as his titular church (1517), and appointed him bishop of Cortona, enlarging the diocese’s territory, in 1521.60 This set acts as a sort of celebration of the close ties between Passerini and the Medici family; the velvet presents an imposing design a griccia featuring, at the top of the individual motifs, the Medici emblem of a diamond ring, and in the centre of each motif the Passerini emblem of a sitting bull (Figure 12). The borders embroidered with figures of saints in or nué, following a cartoon by Andrea del Sarto and Raffaellino del Garbo, are positioned according to the emphasis intended to give them and celebrate personages and episodes connected with Passerini’s life. Here we find Saint Lawrence, in honour of the Roman basilica whose title was granted to Cardinal Passerini by Leo X; Saint John the Baptist and Saint Mark the Evangelist as patron saints of Florence and Cortona respectively, Passerini’s two home cities; Saint Margherita, referring to the concession by Leo X of veneration of the saint (at the time Blessed) from Cortona and to the name of the sister and mother of the cardinal; and Saint Anthony Abbot, since his feast day is the anniversary of the Florentine conquest of Cortona.61 In this case too, the decoration of the set communicates, through both religious and secular figures, the identity and relations of power of the donor, in keeping with an ancient scheme whose roots are sunk in the Late Medieval tradition. However, from the fifteenth century on, images became increasingly related to the cult of saints and to the figures of donors. In Florence, this went together with the progressively increased spectacularism of public religious ceremonies, like processions and consecrations. Representatives of all social classes in town and members of lay confraternities participated in these events, where apparatuses and sceneries similar to those of the sacre rappresentazioni were staged. Clerics carried out of churches the relics of saints, who were in turn portrayed on liturgical vestments, as in a game of mirrors. Lavishness continued to be one of the most powerful visual aspects, as contemporary chronicles attest: the leading families financed and sponsored these ceremonies, in order to show their power and their connections with the Church.62 The political character of these spectacles had much in common with the choice of sacred or heraldic images to decorate liturgical vestments across the Quattrocento. At a time when Cosimo the Elder could lobby the pope to move the Council from Ferrara to Florence,63 and the Florentine mighty had themselves portrayed within fresco cycles in churches’ chapels, likewise the images on liturgical vestments assumed new references which went beyond the religious message to foster a bridge with local power.64

Even though it is difficult to draw conclusions on a topic so open-ended in terms of its numerous cultural interrelations and historical-geographical variables, we can try to identify the characteristics that endure and those that change in the figural decoration of sacred vestments within the historical and geographical sphere examined in this paper.

The preciousness and luminosity of the materials (silk and gold) are a constant within liturgical vesture. In this regard, however, we must note that the concept of preciousness can take different meanings: a vestment is certainly precious because of the richness of its materials, but contributing to the concept of splendour are also the rarity of the fabric used (whose exceptional nature is given by its provenance or the fact of being a ‘gift’ from an illustrious personage) and the technical skill with which it was made. At least until the consolidation of western European textile manufacturing, the element of the rarity and preciousness of sacred vestments seems to prevail over the presence and significance of the decoration as well as over the possible relation between image and liturgical context (the mind goes to the use of Byzantine fabrics with imperial iconographical motifs). It is from the thirteenth century onwards that sacred themes begin to prevail in the decoration of liturgical vesture: the vestments become a medium to express theological concepts through images. That is to say, the liturgical vestments, too, participate in the process of making the words of the liturgy a visible image, ratifying «la nécessité vitale de l’image dans le psychisme religieux occidental».65 In the analysis of figural decorations, however, we must distinguish between vestments (such as copes) destined for public celebrations such as processions and consecrations, and those worn for celebrating Mass. For it is hard to believe that the faithful could manage to read with any precision the image on the liturgical vestments during the Mass, which, we must remember, was celebrated facing the altar. In any case, the complex iconographical structures used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to organize the images suggest that the message of the decorations was aimed primarily at the clergy themselves and only in a different and lesser manner to the faithful, who in all probability were not culturally equipped to understand the message fully but could certainly appreciate the splendour of the vestments and intuit the relation between liturgical gesture and images in motion.

A decisive change in the spatial organization of the images and, in part, in iconographical themes took place starting in the fifteenth century in Italy. The sacred images were concentrated in established, readily visible parts of the vestments (for example the hood of a cope or the orphrey cross of a chasuble), and this changed the relation between the iconographical structure and the liturgical movements/ gestures of the celebrant’s body, with the images less liable to be hidden in the folds of the garments, and thus visually more ‘stable’. Since the images were different on the front and the back of the vestment, the message changed according to the officiant’s position (turned facing or with his back to the assembly) in relation to the faithful.

Another element that distinguished these centuries is the marked tendency to use images that, directly or indirectly (for example heraldic devices, eponymous saints), were connected with the person wearing the garment or with the one who donated it. This ‘personalization’ of the use of sacred images in a certain sense brings liturgical vestments closer to secular ceremonial garments, which visually glorified the reigning family by means of heraldry or devices during public ceremonies, and is related to the contemporary custom of inserting increasingly direct references to donors (sometimes even their portraits) into sacred scenes painted or frescoed in places of worship.

This phenomenon essentially concerns the vestments of the higher ecclesiastical spheres, while more generally, for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we can speak of a real triumph of historiated decoration of liturgical vesture. This can be seen in Italy not only in the luxurious production of figural embroidery destined for church vestments and executed on the basis of cartoons made by the leading artists of the time, but – and above all – by the widespread production of more economical woven and historiated borders (made of silk, linen, and copper gilt) manufactured serially, which, imitating embroidery, decorated the less costly church vestments, using a repertory of images referring mainly to the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. This repertory is often borrowed from successful formulas used in painting being done in the same period and place, made known by woodcuts, but also inserts new iconographical motifs like Saint Bernardino of Siena’s rayed monogram of Christ, widely adopted for liturgical vesture in Tuscany from the late fifteenth century.66

This shows that in these centuries sacred images are by now not only a constant but a predominant element in the decoration of liturgical vestments, independently of the preciousness of the materials, to the point of forming an interesting case of modest, serial production realized starting from exalted pictorial models and intended also for less wealthy parishes.