The Papal Tiara, also known as the Triple Tiara, Triregnum or Triregno1, is the three-tiered papal crown formerly worn by popes from Pope Clement V up to and including Pope Paul VI, who was crowned in 1963. Though not worn by either of Pope Paul's successors, Popes John Paul I and John Paul II it remains the symbol of the papacy and the Holy See, featuring in the coat of arms of the Vatican and on many papal coats of arms. It remains possible that the next pope or any of his successors could decide to reinstate the use of the Papal Tiara for ceremonial use.
Shape of the Triple Tiara
The tiara given to Pope Pius IX in 1877 by the Vatican's Palatine Honour guard in honour of his Jubilee is strikingly similar in design to the earlier tiara of Gregory XVI. It remained a particularly popular crown, worn by among others Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII (who was crowned with it) and Pope John XXIII. Pope Leo XIII's crown, in contrast was much less decorated and much more conical in shape. John XXIII is pictured wearing it below. Apart from the odd looking Belgian Tiara of 1871, two other unusual tiaras exist. One was made for Pope Paul VI in 1963. (A photograph of his coronation is reproduced below.) Shaped like a cross between a beehive and a bullet, and made of silver, it contained few jewels, making it considerably lighter than earlier tiaras. The three tiers were represented simply by three circles at points running around the exterior. Another is the papier-mâché tiara (see below).
Meaning of the Triple Tiara
According to James-Charles Noonan2 the bottom of the three crowns appeared at the base of the mitre in the ninth century. When the popes assumed temporal power in the Patrimony of St. Peter (known generally as the Papal States), the base crown became decorated with jewels to resemble the crowns of princes. A second crown was added by Boniface VIII in 1298 to symbolize spiritual dominion. Very soon after, in or around 1314, a third crown and lappets (cloth strips) were added; Pope Clement V was the first to wear the triple tiara. Though a powerful symbol of the papacy, it has not always been respected even by its wearers. One mediæval pope, Innocent VIII even pawned his papal tiara.
Undoubtedly the most famous occasion when the triple tiara was used was the Papal Coronation, when, in a six hour long ceremony, the new pope would be carried in state to the location of the coronation (usually St. Peter's Basilica or in the case of Pope Pius XII, on the balcony outside), or on some occasions in the Sistine Chapel. The new pope would be crowned with the words
Origins
Usage
The Triple Tiara was not used for liturgical ceremonial, such the celebrating High Mass. Instead it was used exclusively in formal ceremonial processions to and from St. Peter's Basilica or St. John Lateran (the cathedral of the pope as Bishop of Rome), usually when the pope was being carried in the papal sedan or portable throne, whose use was finally ended by Pope John Paul II in October 1978. (John Paul I had initially decided not to use it, only to relent when informed that without it he could not be seen by people. John Paul II opted to use what became known as a pope-mobile when appearing outdoors.) In addition, the triple tiara was used for 'solemn acts of jurisdiction' where the pope appeared 'in state', for example in making a statement ex-cathedra (using Papal Infallibility). It was also worn when a pope gave his traditional urbi et orbi blessing from a balcony, the only principal occasion when the tiara was worn in a religious ceremony.
As with all other modern coronations, the ceremony itself was only symbolic; the person duly elected became pope and Bishop of Rome the moment he accepted his election in the Conclave, as popes John Paul I and II showed by declining a coronation.
Not just one Tiara
Pope Paul VI (1963-1978)
wearing his Papal Tiara
Many crowns were donated to the papacy by world leaders or states, including Napoleon I of France (from elements of former papal tiaras destroyed by his soldiers), which Napoleon gave to Pius VII as a 'wedding gift' to mark his own marriage to Empress Josephine on the eve of his imperial coronation, Queen Isabella II of Spain and the King of Belgium. Others were provided to a newly elected pope by the See which they had held prior to their election.
In some instances, various cities sought to outdo each other in the beauty, value and size of the Triple Tiara they provided for 'their' pope. Examples include triregnos given to Popes John XXIII and Paul VI by their previous Sees, Venice and Milan, on their election to the papacy in 1958 and 1963 respectively.
Nor was a pope restricted to wearing just one tiara: Pope John XXIII, for example, was photographed on different occasions wearing his own tiara presented in 1958, Pope Pius IX's 1877 tiara, or one of Pope Leo XIII's tiaras.
Pope Paul VI, whose bullet-shaped tiara is one of the most unusual in design, was the last pope to date to wear a triple tiara, though it remains open to any of his successors to reinstate both the coronation ceremony and the use of any one of the tiaras. Surviving tiaras, with the exception of that of Pope Paul VI, are on display in the Vatican.
The Papier-Mâché Tiara
Pope John XXIII (1958-1963)
wearing his own Tiara given by the people of Milan in 1959. Because his election was so unexpected, the city had not the time to have a tiara manufactured for his actual coronation. He used the 1877 tiara.
This unusual tiara remains among the papal collection of tiaras. It is rumoured to have been worn by one later pope, Pius IX sometime between 1870 and his death in 1878. Why is unclear. It could have been, as has been suggested, as a sign of his humility. Equally could have been worn for propaganda purposes, it symbolising his self-proclaimed status as the "Prisoner in the Vatican", a term he claimed when in 1870 papal rule in Rome was ended by force and the city became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II. Wearing the papier-mâché papal tiara would have carried powerful resonances for Pope Pius IX. Like his namesake, it could be used to symbolise his victim status as a pontiff "robbed" of his "god-given" Papal States by an "invading" army, the prisoner reduced to wearing a compressed paper crown. Propaganda drawings in the Catholic press in Austria, Belgium and Ireland, and in the French royalist press, showed the "prisoner pope" reduced to sleeping on straw by his Italian 'captors'. Of course in reality whereas the original wearer of the crown, Pope Pius VII in 1800, lived in cramped conditions on the run accompanied by the corpse of his predecessor, the prisoner pope Pius IX lived surrounded by all the pomp and ceremony of the papal court in the Apostolic Palace, being presented with two more bejewelled tiaras to ease the pain of his "captivity", a fact that did not receive the same coverage as his supposed impoverishment.
The Papal Tiara and the '666' Myth
Pope Pius XII (1939-1958)
wearing the 1877 Triple Tiara
Seventh-day Adventists claim it
contains Vicarius Filii Dei on it
Four definitive sources are sometimes given. However none of the sources stands up to detailed examination; one for example speaks of someone witnessing a pope wearing the tiara during Mass. Yet tiaras were never worn during Mass. The claim is further undermined by the fact that all the tiaras have been seen publicly by crowds on display as well as being photographed and filmed up close none of the tiaras contains the supposed writing. Only one contains any writing at all. Historians, academics and mainstream religious leaders view the story as a classic anti-catholic urban myth, a story for which not the slightest shred of evidence has been found, even by the Seventh Day Adventists who have spent over a century extensively searching for the evidence. Finally the title Vicarius Filii Dei itself is not even a papal title. See Myths and legends surrounding the Papacy
Pope Paul VI: The last Crowned Pope
As with all previous popes, Pope Paul VI was crowned with a tiara at the papal coronation. As happened sometimes with previous popes, a new tiara was used, one donated by the city of Milan in honour of Paul's elevation; he had been Cardinal Archbishop of Milan up to his election. Pope Paul's tiara was quite different to earlier tiaras. It was not covered in jewels and precious gems, but was sharply cone-shaped. It was also distinctly lighter than earlier tiaras.
Pope Paul VI was the last pontiff to wear a tiara. At the end of the Second Vatican Council, he descended the steps of the papal throne in St Peter's Basilica and laid the tiara on the altar in a dramatic gesture of humility and as a sign of the renunciation of human glory and power in keeping with the renewed spirit of the Second Vatican Council. It marked a renunciation of one of the three possible reasons for the existence of the three tiers of the crown; secular power, which in any case had ended in 1870 when the Papal States joined the rest of Italy to form the Kingdom of Italy. Popes initially refused to accept their loss of the Papal States. In an act of defiance, they refused to leave the Vatican, describing themselves melodramatically as the 'prisoner in the Vatican'. Paul's removal of his tiara was intended to forever symbolise the papacy's renunciation of any desire for secular power.
Pope Paul VI (1963-1978)
laying his Papal Tiara on the altar of St. Peter's Basilica at the end of Vatican II
Pope Paul's decision to abandon the use of one of the most striking symbols of the papacy, the Papal Tiara, proved highly controversial with conservative Catholics, many of whom continue to campaign for its re-instatement. Some indeed branded him an anti-pope, arguing that no valid pope would surrender the papal tiara. At least one 'claimant' to the papacy after Paul VI's death, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, of the conservative catholic Palmar de Troya movement, and who was 'proclaimed' as 'Pope Gregory XVII' by his followers in Seville, Spain in 1978, was 'crowned' using what a 'new' 'papal tiara', showing the power of its symbolism. (See picture below). However not all self-proclaimed rival 'popes' have opted for a 'tiara'. Reverend Father Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap., who was 'proclaimed' as 'Pope Pius XIII' in the United States in 1998, did not opt for a 'coronation', possibly because his 'church', unlike the Palmar de Troya movement, seems to lack the sort of major resources required to mount such a ceremony; only 28 of the 'faithful' attended the raising of the new 'pope', who had previously just been a priest, to the episcopy, at a ceremony held in a hotel ballroom. The new 'pope' instead took a papal Oath of Office. But his coat of arms does use the papal tiara image. (See image below)
Pope Paul's tiara was presented to the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC by the Apostolic Delegate to the United States on February 6, 1968 as a gesture of Pope Paul VI's affection for the Catholic Church in the United States. It is on permanent display in Memorial Hall along with the stole of Pope John XXIII, which he wore at the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
In 1978, one of Pope John Paul I's first decisions on his election was to dispense with the millennium-old papal coronation and the use of a papal tiara. Though perhaps understandable, given Pope Paul's gesture a decade earlier (Paul VI never wore a Triple Tiara again) it still caused some surprise.
Instead the new pope was installed in a new low key 'inauguration' ceremony, so low key indeed that he had it moved to the morning so as not to disrupt Italian soccer coverage, which would normally be shown in the afternoon.
After Pope John Paul I's sudden death less than a month later, the new pope, John Paul II, opted to continue with John Paul I's precedent of replacing the papal coronation with a low key inauguration. Though unworn, the tiara remains the symbol of the papacy, and still features on the coat of arms of popes, including the uncrowned popes John Paul I and John Paul II. With the disappearance of the papal coronation, the British Monarch now remains the only major monarch to receive a coronation.
All others, like modern popes, are inaugurated into office. Though a future pope could decide to be crowned and wear one of the Triple Tiaras, such a development seems unlikely, with the Papal Crown, like the crowns of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Spain, remaining an unworn symbol of their office, confined to a museum. Though the recent increased usage of some traditional elements of pre-Vatican II, most notably the Tridentine Mass, which in an about turn is now being approved for usage more widely4, might open up the prospect of a return of the papal symbol pre-Vatican II, the Papal Tiara in future civil Holy See ceremonies.
One of the papal tiaras remains in use, however, as is placed on the head of a statue of St. Peter to honour him as the first pope on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29.
1 Some accounts of the papal tiara call it the Triregno, others the triregnum. The Holy See's press office uses the latter name.
2 James-Charles Noonan, The Church Visible, (ISBN 0670867454)
3 Uriah Smith, Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation (published in 1865 by the Seventh Day Adventists)
4After decades of active prohibition, the Vatican in the late 1990s and early 2000s facilitated the usage of the pre-Vatican II latin Tridentine Rite of Mass, which previously had only been allowed in limited cases to small congregations in exceptional circumstances. A full Pontifical High Mass celebrated by a cardinal and attended by Cardinal O'Connor of New York, occurred for the first time in 30 years in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York at the end of the twentieth century while Tridentine Masses have been allowed (though not yet on the main altar) in St. Peter's Basilica, an act facilitated by the retirement of Cardinal Noe, who had been the prelate who championed the abandonment of the papal tiara and who designed the replacement inauguration ceremony. Most dramatically of all, it was revealed in 2002 that Pope John Paul II has on occasion celebrated the traditional Latin Mass in his private chapel in the Vatican, rather than the Novus Ordo Missae vernacular Mass introduced by Pope Paul VI.
A Final End to the Triple Tiara?
Pope John Paul II after his Inauguration
Around his neck he wears a lamb's wool pallium instead of a papal tiara. He controversially did not take the Papal Oath either.List of Papal Tiaras still in existence
See also:Footnotes
Antipope Gregory XVII (1978-present)
wearing the specially produced 'triple tiara' with which his supporters crowned him in 1978 in SevilleAdditional Reading
External links
