Made from a beautiful pale purple silk lamé between the years 1650-1700, this beautiful (presumably pontifical) set comes from the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina located in Italy's southern region of Basilicata.
Uniquely, this particular set is not only comprised of the usual main parts of the chasuble, cope, dalmatic and tunicle, but is actually comprised of another further twenty-two (22), identically designed chasubles, making for twenty three chasubles in total. Lest you think this is made up, here are all twenty-three chasubles from the set:
I am sure many of our readers may well ask, "why so many chasubles?" It is a fair question, particularly in a time when there was yet no concelebration as we know it today, and given the colour, the only thing I can surmise is that these were worn by the canons of the cathedral chapter (without the use of stole or maniple and only over their cassock and rochet, similar to Corpus Christi, hence why there are only enough stoles and maniples as used for a normal solemn or pontifical Mass set) on certain penitential liturgical occasions, perhaps penitential processions.
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| Historical image of the Cathedral of Matera |
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| One of the three stoles and three maniples |
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| Humeral veil |
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