DOSSALE. - The term derives from the barbaric Latin dossalis; it is the word used to designate the cloth employed to cover walls, seats, and altars. A decorative element placed on the altar. In the primitive churches there were no dossals. Only when altars were set against the walls or placed at the end of the apse did the need arise to adorn the bare wall with a dossal.
In the West, from the end of the 11th century, the dossal appears above the altar as a receptacle for relics or sacred objects. It was for the most part movable, made of metal or of painted wood or covered with cloth. From the beginning of the 12th century there were fixed dossals consisting of a thin, worked metal sheet that concealed a reliquary. In time, dossals of metal and precious stones were replaced by those carved in marble, permanently placed on the altar table, also to support the Crucifix. Then came, in the 13th and 14th centuries, large painted dossals with frames in carved and gilded wood, divided into three or more parts: true paintings, whence the name triptychs or polyptychs, until in the 15th century a single painting (pala), often richly framed, triumphed on the altars. In the 17th and 18th centuries, angels, allegorical groups and rich ornamentation were added to the frames of altarpieces.
Dossal is also the name given to the carpet or tapestry placed to cover the back of beds, chests, and chairs.
It is also said of the cloth that wraps a missal or other book like a sheath. - See plates CXVII-CXVIII.
Pietro Gazzola