Florence is famous for it's beautiful cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore , but what many may not realize is that located outside of the cathedral, situated directly behind the area where the apse is located, is the treasury museum of the cathedral, the Opera di Santa Maria…
The Passion Reliquary of Duomo of Florence (The Croce della Granduchessa)
Florence is famous for it's beautiful cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore , but what many may not realize is that located outside of the cathedral, situated directly behind the area where the apse is located, is the treasury museum of the cathedral, the Opera di Santa Maria…
The Papal Ferula
The papal ferula (from Latin ferula 'rod'), is an ancient pastoral staff, established before the thirteenth century. Distinct from the crozier of bishops, it is essentially a staff topped by a cross (historically without the body of Christ). The ferula also has a th…
The "Auriesville Pilgrimage" for Restoration
The Pilgrimage for Restoration (also known as the "Auriesville Pilgrimage") was founded in 1996 as an annual walking pilgrimage in northeastern New York. Not to be overlooked, each year it draws a sizable number of traditional Catholics who walk through the pictur…
Before and After: Mother of Mercy Chapel at St. Charles Preparatory School in Columbus, Ohio
The firm of William Heyer Architect is located in Columbus, Ohio and in 2025 they were involved in a beautification project at the (already quite beautiful) Mother of Mercy Chapel located at the St. Charles Preparatory School in Columbus, Ohio. The chapel was already built …
An Illuminated Byzantine Psalter from the Twelfth Century
We don't dive into illuminated medieval liturgical books as much as I'd like, and when one thinks of them, one tends to think of the manuscripts of the Latin West, but there is, of course, a comparative tradition to be found within the Christian East. Within the col…
Before and After: St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Lee’s Summit, Missouri
The church of St. Margaret of Scotland located in Lee's Summit, Missouri, was previously a fairly spartan liturgical space. To be clear however, the core space had its merits; it had order and symmetry, it simply lacked colour and ornament. In some ways, it represents w…
Churches of Québec: Église du Saint-Nom-de-Marie in St.Marie-de-Beauce
In the past we have featured some of the beautiful and historical churches of province of Québec in Canada, and today we are pleased to formalize this into our "Churches of Québec" series, which we hope to publish from time to time in order to share the wealth of …
The Fraction of the Host in the Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic rite, a liturgical rite of the Latin Church, gives us a glimpse of some unique traditions that come from Medieval liturgical praxis in Spain. The liturgy is teacher. We learn from the sacred rites. The Mozarabic Rite has a distinct fraction custom, seen in the…
The Monumental Fifteenth Century Crucifix of Bologna
Located in the city of Bologna is the fifteenth century Basilica of San Petronio, a basilica that is perhaps most famous for the fact of its only partially finished facade . However, located within the basilica is a stunning, monumental carved wooden crucifix, hung from the …
A Survey of Some Recent Work by Hape Sculpture in Italy
The workshop of Hape Sculptures are located in the famed region of Val Gardena in the north of Italy where so many woodcarvers and woodcarving workshops have made their home. Hape is a family run business that was founded many decades ago creating hand carved works in wood,…
Before and After (and After Again): An Update from Holy Innocents in Long Beach, California
An update on a previous 'before and after we wrote about at the beginning of 2024, focused on Holy Innocents in Long Beach, California . In that article we detailed the work that Harrison Design pursued at this particular church. The very best refresher, of course, are s…
An American Catholic Masterpiece: the High Altar and Reredos of the Assumption Church
An outstanding example of ecclesiastical art in the United States is the highly decorative altar and reredos of the church of the Assumption in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a feast for the eyes, a garland of beauty, made of local oak wood by German immigrants at the end of th…
The Papal Fanon
The fanon is a papal vestment worn for solemn liturgies. It is the only prominent vestment distinctive of the rank of a pope. This custom dates back at least to the 8th-century. The fanon is also worn by the Patriarch of Lisbon. The photo below depicts Pope St. John Paul II…
A 'Roman' Pianeta from Atelier LAVS
LAVS is perhaps best known for their mitres as well as their more fully flowing, medieval-styled vestments, but LAVS also occasionally dips into the realm of later cuts, cuts often colloquially referred to as the 'Roman' cut. One of the characteristic stylistic elem…
Variety and Distinctiveness: Sacra Domus Aurea's 'Gotico Pastello' Gothic Revival Set
Many years ago, in January 2018. we wrote a two part series about The Importance of Variety and Distinctiveness in Vestment Design . In that series we looked at gothic revival vestments (and baroque vestments), and one of the questions we asked about contemporary approaches …
Chiesa di San Lorenzo: One Parish Church's Solemn Mass Set Dedicated to its Patron Saint, St. Lawrence
St. Lawrence, whose feast day is observed today, is one of the most prominent saints of the Church of Rome (and indeed, of the church in Rome proper), being one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome who was ultimately martyred in A.D. 258 at the age of 32 during the pers…
The Papal Mantum
The papal mantum was one of several papal vestments that developed through the centuries only to be ignored and cast aside in a fit of 1960s modernization. Other distinctly papal vestments, for example, included the falda, the subcinctorium, and the exceptionally long fanon…
Contemporary Work: A Monumental Mural of the Transfiguration
The Feast of the Transfiguration is one of those feasts in the liturgical year which really doesn't get the focused, popular devotional attention that it deserves. Now, in the Christian East, the Transfiguration is one of the feasts that they like to particularly highli…
August 5th: Solemnity of Our Lady of Snows (In Dedicationie S. Mariae Ad Nives) in Rome
The Solemnity of Our Lady of Snows in Rome is one of the more beloved annual traditions in Rome. Similar to the feast of Pentecost at the Pantheon, flower pedals are showered down upon the floor of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in commemoration of the event that took place…
Markos Kampanis' Work for Two Byzantine Private Family Chapels
Over the course of LAJ's tenure, we have explored various private chapels. To date these have been exclusively focused on chapels set within the Latin rite context, but something we have never had the opportunity to show to date are such spaces set within the context of…
Exploring Carthusian Liturgical Architecture
While 'Carthusian architecture' is not something one hears spoken of a great deal -- compared to, say, Cistercian architecture -- it seems fair to suggest that there is a recognizable Carthusian style and ordering, one that tends to follow a model similar to that of…
