MANTELLETTA (mantellum). – An ecclesiastical, though non-liturgical, garment, a kind of shortened mantle, of ample form reaching to the knees, open in front, without sleeves, with two broad lateral openings through which to insert the arms. A mark of dignity, it is the dress of the Roman prelature.
It is worn by cardinals, patriarchs, bishops, regular abbots, apostolic protonotaries, and domestic prelates; it is always used with the rochet. In their dioceses, all bishops wear the mozzetta without the m. In the Roman Curia, all, having removed the mozzetta, wear the m. In the presence of the pope, cardinals wear the rochet, the m., and the mozzetta; during a vacancy of the see, as in the places under their jurisdiction, they proceed with the rochet without the m. In their dioceses, in the presence of a cardinal or of their own metropolitan, bishops wear the m. and the mozzetta; if the cardinal is a legatus a latere, then only the m.
The color of the m. depends on the person wearing it: cardinals have it in three colors, usually red, violet on days of penance and mourning, and rose on Sundays
It is uncertain when the mantelletta came into use; perhaps the mantellum of the Ordo Roman. XIII (Caeremoniale Romanum, ed. iussu Gregorii X, after 1274) or of the Ordo Roman. XV (Liber de caeremoniis S. R. E. « auctore Petro Amelio, Ep. Senegalliensi », m. in 1401) refers to the mantelletta (Braun); G. Catalani cites in the Caeremoniale episcoporum (I, Rome 1744, pp. 14–15) canon II of the Council of Buda (1279) and the decrees of the Second Provincial Council of Milan of St. Charles (16th century), stating that it had “in usu fuisse saec. XV.”