BLESSED SWADDLE CLOTHS. — These are the so-called swaddle cloths for infants that popes were wont to send, after blessing them, to the newborn sons and daughters of kings.
They were normally made of precious fabrics, embroidered in gold and adorned with miniature work and lacework of gems.
The custom was introduced under Clement VIII, but not already in 1592, as Moroni would have it (G. Moroni, op. cit. in bibliography, p. 224), but some years later.
It is in fact in the instructions sent to the nuncio of France on the occasion of the birth of the firstborn of Henry IV (1610) that mention is made for the first time of the blessed swaddle cloths, sent as a gift by the Pope to the king, through the extraordinary nuncio Maffio Barberini (later Urban VIII). At least so concluded the vice-prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Giovanni Bisaglia, in two of his letters of 1678 and 1608, after careful investigations carried out in the same Archive (cod. Vat. lat. 12431, ff. 62-64). The custom was continued under Urban VIII, Alexander VII, Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, Clement XI, Benedict XIII, Clement XII, Benedict XIV, Clement XIV, and Pius VI.
The swaddle cloths were blessed with solemn ceremonial by the pope in person in the chapels of the Apostolic Palaces or in the consistorial hall or even in some church of Rome, and were sent by special apostolic envoys or also presented by the nuncio, expressly commissioned. They were accompanied by a papal brief and, at the time of presentation, by an address from the nuncio or envoy.
The dwindling number of ruling houses or their political orientation, little inclined toward the Church, eventually caused this gracious custom to disappear.
F.A.S.C.I.: V. FEDERAZIONI ASSOCIAZIONI SPORTIVE CATTOLICHE ITALIANE.