FERRAIOLO. – This is a broad mantle of silk or other lightweight fabric, red, violet, or black in color, according to the rank of the person wearing it—cardinal, bishop, or priest—and it is fastened at the neck by strips of the same color.
It is always worn over the abito piano, but the black f., both in its broad and reduced form, is commonly considered an integral part of clerical dress, and is worn over the black cassock during the summer months.
A pleated black f. reaching from the shoulders to the knee is worn by certain dignitaries of the papal court (sword and cape chamberlains, ushers, etc.) as their particular insignia.
The f. formed part of the dress of nobles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to whose class clerics belonged.