OMBRELLONE (conopaeum, PADIGLIONE, SINNICCHIO). - It is an insignia in the form of a large umbrella called a “conopeo” (in decrees = padiglione), proper to the major and minor Roman basilicas and to those outside Rome that possess the privilege and title of “minor basilica.”
Together with the cross and the tintinnabulum or little bell, it precedes the clergy of the basilica in processions. Its bands are of yellow and orange silk (the colours of the Papal State; of the French Roman republic, today of Rome), bearing the arms of the basilica; the fringes are of the same colours, but alternating with those of the bands; above it is a ball with a small gilded cross. It no longer serves the practical purpose of protecting a numerous clergy from sun or rain, but is rather solely a distinctive insignia of the dignity of the chapter, just as the small umbrella, from which it derives, is for individual persons. According to others, it perhaps derives from “sinnicchio” (from συγ-σύλιο = cohabitation), an imperial insignia, a derivation and transformation of military tents and especially of that which served the Emperor in the field. That imperial insignia, having passed among papal honorary prerogatives, subsequently became the insignia of the Lateran Basilica, the pope’s cathedral as bishop of Rome. From the Lateran it then passed as an insignia also to the other Roman basilicas.