Men of Music, Art, Letters and Law
The late-medieval papal chapel was a powerful jewel in the papal tiara.
Easter Day, Rome, 1300. In the Lateran Palace, 24 priests rise before dawn. They don white cassocks and proceed to the pope’s private chambers, where, silently, they dress Boniface VIII in a plain white cope and a pearl-studded mitre. In the intimate chapel of San Nicola, next to the papal chambers, they say Prime and Matins with their pope. Then the white-clad coterie processes through the palace to the chapel of San Lorenzo – the Sancta Sanctorum – and assembles before an icon. Torches and candles burn on the altar. Above, glinting mosaic words declare: ‘There is no holier place in the entire world.’ These priests are the papal chaplains.
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