Papal tiara

The papal tiara is a crown that was worn by popes of the Roman Catholic Church from as early as the 8th century to the mid-20th. It was last used by Pope Paul VI in 1963 and only at the beginning of his reign.

The name "tiara" refers to the entire headgear, no matter how many crowns, circlets or diadems have adorned it through the ages, while the three-tiered form that it took in the 14th century is also called the triregnum,triple tiara, or triple crown.

From 1143 to 1963, the papal tiara was solemnly placed on the pope's head during a papal coronation. The surviving papal tiaras are all in the triple form, the oldest being of 1572, and the others no earlier than 1800.

A representation of the triregnum combined with two crossed keys of Saint Peter continues to be used as a symbol of the papacy and appears on papal documents, buildings and insignia.

The papal tiara originated from a conical Phrygian cap or frigium. Shaped like a candle-extinguisher, the papal tiara and the episcopal mitre were identical in their early forms.

Names used for the papal tiara in the 8th and 9th centuries include camelaucum, pileus, phrygium and pileum phrygium.

A circlet of linen or cloth of gold at the base of the tiara developed into a metal crown, which by about 1300 became two crowns. The first of these appeared at the base of the traditional white papal headgear in the 9th century. When the popes assumed temporal power in the Papal States, the base crown became decorated with jewels to resemble the crowns of princes. The second crown is said to have been added by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) as signifying both his spiritual and temporal power, since he declared that God had set him over kings and kingdoms, or by Pope Boniface VIII. However, a fresco in the Chapel of Saint Sylvester (consecrated in 1247) in the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome seems to represent the Pope wearing a tiara with two bands and with lappets. The addition of a third crown is attributed to Pope Benedict XI (1303–1304) or Pope Clement V (1305–1314), and one such tiara was listed in an inventory of the papal treasury in 1316 (see "Tiara of Saint Sylvester", below). The first years of the 16th century saw the addition of a little globe and cross to top the tiara.

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