FASCE BENEDETTE. — Such are called the swaddling bands which the popes used to send to newborn sons and daughters of kings, after blessing them.
They were ordinarily made of precious fabrics, embroidered in gold and embellished with lace and gems.
The custom was introduced under Clement VIII, but not in 1592, as Moroni maintains (G. Moroni, op. cit. in BIBL., p. 224), but a few years later.
It is in fact in the instructions sent to the nuncio in France on the occasion of the birth of the firstborn son of Henry IV (1601) that mention is made for the first time of the f. b. sent as a gift by the Pope to the king through the extraordinary nuncio Maffeo Barberini (later Urban VIII). Such, at least, was the conclusion reached by the vice-prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Giovanni Bissiga, in two letters of his dated 1678 and 1698, after careful investigations carried out in the same Archives (cod. Vat. lat. 12431, ff. 62-64). The custom continued under Urban VIII, Alexander VII, Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, Clement XI, Benedict XIII, Clement XII, Benedict XIV, Clement XIV and Pius VI.
The f. were blessed with a solemn ceremony
personally by the pontiff in the chapels of the Apostolic Palaces, in the consistory hall, or even in some church in Rome, and were sent by special apostolic ablegates, or presented by the nuncio, who was specifically commissioned for the purpose. They were accompanied by a papal brief and, at the time of presentation, by an address from the nuncio or ablegate.
The dwindling number of reigning houses, together with their political orientation, which was little inclined toward the Church, ultimately caused this gracious custom to disappear.