Great Umbrella (Conopaeum, Pavilion, Sinnicchio)

GREAT UMBRELLA (Conopaeum, Pavilion, Sinnicchio). - It is an emblem in the form of a large umbrella called a "conopeum" (in the decrees = pavilion), proper to the major and minor Roman basilicas and to those outside Rome that have the privilege and title of "minor basilica."

With the cross and the tintinnabulum or little bell it precedes the clergy of the basilica in processions. The stripes are of yellow and orange silk (the colors of the Papal State; of the French Roman Republic, today of Rome) with the coats of arms of the basilica; the fringes are of the same colors, but alternating with those of the stripes; above it is a ball with a small gilded cross. It no longer serves any practical use of protecting a numerous clergy from the sun or the rain, but is rather only a distinctive emblem of the dignity of the college, just as the small umbrella, from which it derives, is for individual persons. According to others it perhaps derives from the "sinnicchio" (from συγ-σύλιο = cohabitation), an imperial emblem, a derivation and transformation of military tents and particularly of the one that served the Emperor in the field. That imperial emblem, having passed among the honorary prerogatives of the popes, later became the emblem of the Lateran Basilica, the cathedral of the pope as bishop of Rome. From the Lateran it then passed as an emblem also to the other Roman basilicas.

Pietro Siffrin