Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Mighty Mitres

From Montecassino:

The mitre on the right belonged to Leo X and it has more pearls than the ocean has drops.


Here's a close-up. Sorry for the flash, but without it you wouldn't see a thing.



Nnnnnniiiiiice!


Beautiful!

7 comments:

Gregor said...

Nnnnnniiiiiice indeed. Is there any chance that they are ever used these days, or are they condemned to living out their bleak existence in a showcase?

The Saint Bede Studio said...

The acquired taste of the baroque mitre?

Although at least the Leo X mitre had a semblance of the traditional ornament of a mitre (circulus and titulus).

Leo, I prefer your previous offering:

http://thefarsight2.blogspot.com/2009/06/readers-photos-from-belgium-part-i.html

The Saint Bede Studio said...

I doubt that link (above) has worked.

It refers to your post of June 2009, "Readers Photos from Belgium I" shewing a whole battery of Gothic Revival mitres (with one odd-man out) early last century.

Now that's "niiiiiiiiice".

Anonymous said...

Leo X? Sorry, but there must be a typo here somewhere. Leo X died in 1521, and, to my knowledge, that type of mitre just wasn't around at that time. At one of the infulae of the Leo mitre, the coat of arms of the Medici (or a similar coat of arms) can be seen. Leo X was by no means the last Medici on the chair of St. Peter. Strangely, another Leo some decades later was also born a Medici: Leo XI died in 1605 after being Pope for all of 3.5 weeks. In my opinion, the mitre is a work of the 17th or possibly even the 18th century. The next Leo, Leo XII, died in 1830. Now if the photos of coats of arms were a bit bigger, the problem could be solved rather easily, I imagine.

Pompous Ass

Anonymous said...

I sent you a mail.

j.g. rathkaj said...

"that type of mitre just wasn't around at that time"

That's not correct. Concerning the coat of arms it suffices to look at the right brace of the mitre, please what else than the medici familiy crest could it be?? In Florence there is preserved a quite similar superb one. Ars Regia(whilom "tridentinum") has fabulous replicas of this florentine mitre in supply.

Anonymous said...

ad j.g. rathkaj:

"Please what else than the Medici family crest could it be??" - As I pointed out, Leo X (+ 1521) was by no means the last Medici on the chair of Peter. If I remember my reading correctly, at some point in the Renaissance or Baroque era, there were several "branches" of Medici, not all of them related by blood, but bearing the same surname. They would, of course, bear the same coat of arms as the "real" Medici, even with some semblance of legality. Taking someone else's coat of arms for one's own ("usurpation of arms") is not unknown. The practice has been around since the Middle Ages and has occured in every country of Christendom, including, of course, Italy.

Pompous Ass