This week, a field of flowers surrounds Pope Francis’ simple wooden cas in St. Peter’s Cathedral. The intricate patterns woven in shades of crimson, indigo and orange do not belong to Italian artistic tradition. This elaborate carpet is the second of three used in the papal funeral process and comes from northwest Iran, the Art Newspaper reports.
The use of Persian carpet in the Pope’s funeral process may seem like a surprising choice. That is to say, for those who don’t know the long history of the carpets of the Islamic world in the Christian context. The Catholic Church follows more than 600 years of tradition, with a Persian carpet under Pope Francis’ cas in his private chapel, and for a funeral in St. Peter’s Square on April 26th. You might think that both Italian and Christian traditions, the visual word on carpet has come to mean the sacred site of the most sanctified rituals of Catholic rituals.
From the late 14th century, carpets imported from Anatolia (and later Levant, Egypt, Iran) were the most precious floor coverings that money could buy. Their special status is evidenced by their depictions of religious paintings. There, such carpets often appear at the feet of the Virgin Mary and other important Christian figures. One of the earliest examples is the marriage of a virgin by Nicolodibu Onagcorso, painted in Siena around 1380 (and featured in the exhibition: the rise of paintings at the National Gallery in London). Among them, the striking carpet with a confrontational animal design distinguishes the noble zone where Mary and Joseph’s wedding takes place. The closely related carpet currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was discovered in the 1990s, perhaps a product of the western territories of the Il Honeydo Empire.
Andrea del Verrocchio used the Anatolia carpet in a similar way for the depiction of the Virgin and the child adjacent to John the Baptist and Bishop Donato de Medici (known as the Square Madonna). It was completed in 1486. The relative proximity of two other figures to the virgin and child is implied by their position within the carpet. While St. John stepped all his foot into the carpet boundaries, Donato de Medici enters space with only the edge of his toe.
In the 16th century, carpets from Islamic lands reached Europe in ever-increasing numbers, arriving as trade goods, direct commissions, and sometimes diplomatic gifts as very good examples. Carpets from Ottoman lands ruled trade in the 16th century. Safavid Iran and subsequent Mughal India joined the market on the 17th. The use of carpets as diplomatic gifts continues to this day. In 2016, when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met Pope Francis at the Vatican, he brought along with him a small carpet woven in QOM as a gift to the emperor.
The three carpets seen in Francis’ funeral procedures work almost exactly the same as the carpets in a painting. They inform the sacred sites, sacred sites, sanctified spaces with clear boundaries that separate the clergy from the attendants and visitors around him. In the more intimate space of the private chapel, two members of Swiss security guards stood adjacent to the cas on the carpet border, repeating the gestures of John the Baptist at Piazza Madonna in Verrocchio. At St. Peters, larger carpet boundaries and the sacred zones they encompassed were strengthened by posts for public viewing.
Remembering Pope Francis and remembering the owner of the Catholic Church, who has trusted the Vatican library and art collection for 12 years
Louis Jeb
Another Persian carpet spread under Pope Francis’ cas for a funeral mass in St. Peter’s Square. Again, it is a heliz carpet from northwest Iran, and looks similar to the one used in two previous papal funerals. Pope John Paul II in 2005 and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2023.
The change enacted by Francis in late 2024 avoids many of the dignity and circumstances of previous papal funerals, such as the three different ffin of Bears and Cypress, Reed and Oak on the elevated train used by his predecessors of St. Peter Basilica. With this in mind, it is especially important to include carpets. Francis is located on a simple wooden cas placed low on the carpet, so the image of the sacred site is clear to the foreground.
MNA/