Sedia gestatoria

The gestatorial chair (sedia gestatoria [ˈsɛːdja dʒestaˈtɔːrja] in Italian, lit. "chair for carrying") was a ceremonial throne on which Popes were carried on shoulders until 1978, and later replaced with the Popemobile. It consists of a richly adorned, silk-covered armchair, fastened on a suppedaneum, on each side of which are two gilded rings; through these rings pass the long rods with which twelve footmen (palafrenieri), in red uniforms, carry the throne on their shoulders. On prior occasions, as in the case of Pope Stephen III, popes were carried on the shoulders of men.

The sedia gestatoria is an elaborate variation on the sedan chair. Two large fans (flabella) made of white ostrich feathers —a relic of the ancient liturgical use of the flabellum, mentioned in the Constitutiones Apostolicae— were carried at either side of the sedia gestatoria.

In the 1800s, Prince Alessandro Torlonia spent his Thursdays in bringing out a sedia gestatoria from Pope Leo XIII to carry the Santo Bambino of Aracoeli to the sick believers who were unable to travel to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

The ceremonial throne was mainly used to carry popes to and from papal ceremonies in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and St. Peter's Basilica. The sedia was used as part of papal ceremony for nearly a millennium. Its origins are sometimes thought to date back to the Byzantine Empire where Byzantine emperors were carried along in a similar manner, but many sources indicate the use of the sedia is of a much earlier date, probably being derived from rituals accompanying the leadership of the ancient Roman Empire.

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