FLABELLA. - From flabellum = fan: under this name are commonly understood today the two large fans of white ostrich or peacock feathers, gathered into two rows, supported by a long pole covered in crimson velvet, adorned with a gold ribbon, carried at the two sides of the pontiff when he goes in procession on the sedia gestatoria, and when on the litter he carries the Eucharist in procession.
But the "flabellum" or "muscarium" was already known from antiquity, used in civil life and also in religious rites for a purpose of social distinction and for a practical purpose, which was that of keeping away flies, mosquitoes, etc. Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian and Greek monuments offer frequent examples of it in representations of sovereigns and high personages. Latin literature has frequent allusions to the practical purpose of the instrument (cf. Ovid, Ars amatoria, I, 161; Martial, Epigram., III, 72, 82; Plautus, Trinum., II, 1, v. 22; St. Jerome, Ep. 44 and Ep., 108, 27; PL 22, 480, 903). Of more or less ample proportions, the fly-whisk fan could be of parchment, of paper or of leather, like the highly wrought one of Theodelinda, today preserved in the Museum of Monza.
The first mention in Christian sacred use is given to us in the 4th century by the Apostolic Constitutions (VIII, 12, 3; ed. F. X. Funck, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, I, Paderborn 1905, p. 496), where the deacons are prescribed to make use of it between the Offertory and the Communion. The use became frequent in the East and is found in the liturgies of St. Basil, of St. John Chrysostom, etc. Even today, albeit with symbolic value, the use of small flabella survives in the East, generally of metal, which are waved after the Consecration of the species.
In antiquity, on the other hand, the flabella for liturgical use were always made of pliable material: peacock feathers, parchment, silk. In the end a symbolism was also attached to them, recalling the scriptural passage of Is. 6, 2, where mention is made of the six-winged seraphim who stand before the throne of God.
According to some it was Pope Agapetus (535-36) who introduced them into Western liturgical use (cf. J. M. Suárez, Diatribio, cod. Vat. lat. 8430, f. 281). They certainly appear in the 9th century (see the liturgical flabellum of Tournus, 12th century, Florence, Museo nazionale) and become frequent in the 11th century, although perhaps their use never became entirely common in the West. In papal processions they gradually, from liturgical furnishings, when they were by then disappearing from sacred use, became objects of ornamentation and pomp, and were carried by the "andeambulones seu pedissequi famuli" (J. M. Suárez, op. cit., f. 280). Until the 17th century they were called "cherubim", and were of metal; later they were made of feathers. And such they have remained to the present: the task of holding them is entrusted to two secret chamberlains, in purple habit or with red cape.
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Pietro Palazzini