Cope (Pluviale, Cappa, Mantus)

COPE (Pluviale, Cappa, Mantus). - A liturgical mantle of semicircular shape, long enough to reach almost to the feet, open at the front and fastened at the chest by a clasp. At the back it is adorned by the so-called "shield."

It does not originate from the ancient lacerna, nor from the ancient paenula, since these had long been out of civil use when the p. came to be employed in liturgical worship. It seems rather to derive from the choral clerical or monastic cope of the 8th and 9th centuries, distinct from the bell-shaped chasuble of the same form because it was open at the front (or at least had openings through which to pass the hands) and was provided with a hood; it was worn in choir and at processions, made of cloth for daily use and of silk on feast days. In the 9th century it is not yet found numbered among the liturgical vestments (Amalarius still designates the chasuble as the liturgical vestment common to all the clergy). From the 10th century the singers began to use the festal cope instead of the chasuble; they followed the priests in functions outside Holy Mass, especially at the incensation during Lauds and Vespers (whence the German name Rauchmantel = mantle of incensation; Vespermantel = mantle of Vespers). At the end of the 11th century the cope ended up becoming a liturgical vestment in all functions outside Holy Mass, the chasuble remaining exclusively proper to Holy Mass; and it was worn not only by priests or bishops, but by all the clergy, by the singers and by the lower ministers. In Italy the name p. is preferred because it has the form of a mantle that protects from rain and bad weather, while outside Italy it is called cope, in Spain also mantus. It is made, as a rule, of silk and follows the rules of the liturgical colors.

Pietro Siffini

ART

As for its form, originally the pluvial did not differ from the bell-shaped chasuble except in being provided with a hood; it was not always open at the front, whereas from the 11th century onward the open cope definitively prevailed, and its form did not change down to the present day.

The trimmings and the hood, on the other hand, underwent various transformations; the former, from being very simple and narrow, gradually widened and became adorned with embroideries, especially figured ones; the latter, from the 11th century onward, lost its function as a head covering and in the second half of the 12th century became a purely ornamental feature, diminished in size and was reduced to a miniature hood. Examples of this transitional type survive in the cathedral of Halberstadt (12th century) and in St. Paul in Carinthia (13th century). Already in the 13th century the tiny hood had turned into a small triangular piece of cloth, which still recalls the hood only in its shape. With the 14th and 15th centuries the triangle slowly transforms into a shield (clipeus) of ever wider proportions, and in the second half of the 15th century it takes the form of an ogival arch; then of a semicircle; in the Baroque period it becomes oval, reaching in width beyond the middle of the vestment. The clasps of pluvials were of great importance in the Middle Ages; inventories give an idea of their richness, and even better do some beautiful surviving examples. More numerous are those adorned with figures (cathedral of Aachen, Museum of Arts and Crafts in Berlin); rarer are those adorned with precious stones and pearls (St. Peter's in Salzburg, cathedral of Aosta). Along the edge of the pluvial there is sometimes a fringe, a braid, or even little bells by way of pendants (cathedral of Aachen).

The use of the pluvial must have grown over the centuries, as the inventories document; in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries ever more numerous, precious pluvials made of splendid fabrics are listed (cf. the inventory of the cathedral of Prague of 1387 and that of Lincoln Cathedral of 1536). From the Middle Ages survive pluvials entirely embroidered with figures set within round or quadrangular fields, arranged in series parallel to the straight side of the pluvial or in concentric zones. The majority of this type, of which magnificent examples also exist in Italy, comes from England, particularly renowned for this kind of needlework, which in the 13th and 14th centuries took the name of opus Anglicanum. Among the oldest of these historiated pluvials (13th century) are remembered that of St. Paul in Carinthia with the Histories of Sts. Blaise and Vincent, that of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; in Italy those of Ascoli Piceno, of Anagni and of the Civic Museum of Bologna. Embroideries of the Cypriot-Palermitan type, in gold on red jasper, with confronted parrots are in the pluvial of Boniface VIII at Anagni and in that of St. Corona at Vicenza. From the 14th century are the stupendous examples of the cathedral of Pienza, of St. John Lateran, of Toledo, Comminges, Salzburg. Exceptional in the 15th century are the three pluvials of the Order of the Golden Fleece in the Court Museum of Vienna, all the more so since after the 13th century the type of pluvial with embroidery only on the shield and the trimming is far more common. Notable examples of this type are in St. Mary's in Danzig, in the cathedral of Xanten, in the Museum of Bern. In later times the entire pluvial is adorned with embroideries of ornamental motifs, and only the shield and the trimming are embroidered with figures; a fine example is the pluvial in gold lamé in the church of Gandino, the pluvial known as that of Urban V at Montefiascone, and another in the Treasury of the cathedral of Aosta. Internally adorned with floral motifs are the pluvials of the church of St. Donato in Siena and of the parish church of St. Lawrence at Montefiesole. Examples of sumptuous garden-style coloring are the pluvials of the Venetian school from the beginning of the 16th century in St. Tomà in Venice and in the Larcade collection at St-Germain en Laye; also Venetian work is the pluvial in brocaded velvet with an Annunciation and eight figures of saints in the National Museum of Florence and that of the cathedral of Recanati. Very notable is that of the cathedral of Genoa, whose designs are attributed to Pierin del Vaga. Fantastic motifs inspired by Oriental art are in the 18th-century pluvial of the cathedral of Ancona, and a masterpiece of gauze fabrics is the 18th-century pluvial of the basilica of Gandino, analogous to a set of vestments of the basilica of Alzano Maggiore and to another of the church of the major hospital of Bergamo. - See pl. CXII-CXIII.

Podreider, Storie dei tessuti d'arte in Italia, Bergamo 1928; J. Kendrick, English embroidery, London 1933.

Luisa Mortari