Description

Following the coronation procession route of Pope Innocent III at the end of the 12th century, the Vatican would have been the start. Papal coronations represented the pope’s authority and power over secular rule, and there is no better place to start a procession, especially a papal coronation, than in Vatican City. The Vatican was important in many ways, especially because of the relics, apostles, and icons in St. Peter’s Basilica. There was no holier place in Rome than St. Peter’s, and there was no seat of higher power than the Vatican.

Vatican City was the location of the pope's coronation by three cardinal bishops. After his consecration, the procession would leave the Vatican to move through the city, toward the Lateran cathedral on the other side. The pope would join the procession wearing both the episcopal miter and the royal crown, a combination of the religious and political power that he had been bestowed.

The procession was divided into seventeen parts, with lower level clergy, horses, and flag bearers in the front. Next, there was a parade of animals, bright red banners with cherubim, and subdeacons carrying crosses. Behind them were officials like scribes, lawyers, judges and singers, all the way to the back where high-ranking priests, cardinals, and bishops would follow. The seventeenth layer of the procession was the newly crowned Pope.

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McCahill, Elizabeth. "Acting as the One True Pope: Eugenius IV and Papal Ceremonial." In Reviving the Eternal City, 137-67. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.carleton.edu/stable/j.ctt6wppgv.11.

Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. 60-61.

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