Flabellum

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Pope Pius XII on the Sedia gestatoria with a feather-adorned flabellum in the background
Corpus Christi procession in Rome, Pope with Flabelli, lithograph around 1830

Flabellum ( lat. For "fan") is the designation for a mainly from peacock feathers , parchment or fabric prepared as liturgical equipment used subjects .

function

The flabellum was previously used by an altar servant or deacon to keep insects away from the offerings and celebrants during Holy Mass , accordingly it was also called muscarium or muscafugium ("fly whisk, fly swatter"). Fans made of peacock feathers came into fashion in medieval processions and until the 1960s for papal ceremonies as a solemn decorative object ( flabelli ); These probably come from oriental royal ceremonies and were originally used for cooling and repelling insects.

history

As evidenced in Asia in the fifth century, it has been preserved there in liturgical use to this day in the form of the Rhipidion . No longer serving the original purpose, the flabellum has been converted into a metal disc, which, adorned with six-winged cherubim, served as a symbol of the angels floating around the altar . In the West, on the other hand, the fan came into use as a much less common object only in the ninth and more frequently since the eleventh century.

Others

Only formally related are the so-called disc crosses , Latin also called rotae or flabella .

literature

Web links