MOZZETTA. - An outer garment worn by ecclesiastical dignitaries outside of liturgical functions; it is a small mantle that covers the shoulders and a good part of the arms; at the front it is buttoned on the chest, and at the back, at the top, a very small hood is sewn. It is proper to the pope, to cardinals, to bishops, to regular abbots and to those who enjoy it by custom or pontifical privilege (for example, the canons of many cathedrals). It is worn over the uncovered rochet, besides by the pope, by prelates invested with jurisdiction.
The origin of the m. is uncertain; perhaps it is a shortening of the cappa magna; hence its name. The hood was reduced when the biretta came into use. The m. was in use in Rome in the second half of the 15th century.
The m. of cardinals is of red or purple silk, of violet or dark purple silk according to the different times of the year; in the presence of the pope it is worn over the mantelletta. Cardinals belonging to monastic and mendicant Orders always use the m. of wool, serge or cloth and of the color of the habit of the Order to which they belong; for example, the Benedictines black, the Carmelites white, the Franciscans gray. Bishops use in many of the 18 masses (besides fragments of masses). Less significant are the two oratorios Betulia liberata (1771) and Davide pentente (1785); of great expressive intensity are the splendid Ave verum (1791) and the Requiem (1791), the last composition which, left unfinished at the Lachrymosa dies illa, was completed by the pupil Ignaz Lüssmayer.
Considered with less favor during the Romantic period, the music only the dark purple or violet color; religious bishops that of their Order, and so do regular abbots. An m. without a hood is given as a privilege to parish priests in certain dioceses.
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Pietro Siffrin