The Emergence of the Liturgical Vestments of Western Christianity in the Late-Ancient and Early Medieval Iconography

Abstract

The article explains some notes on the emergence of liturgical vestments into the iconographic representations of the Christian liturgy in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages. To that end, main historiographic problems and written sources which reconstruct the origins of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Rite are explained. Later on, a tour of some figurative examples, tracing the early visual history of sacred vestments, is proposed. These offer special attention to three themes: In the first place, the presence of liturgical vestments in the mural programs and mosaics of the first centuries. Secondly, the representation of the clergy and their vestments in small pieces of early medieval ivory. Finally, the codification of the liturgical dressing in the development of the incipient manuscripts’ illumination of the 9th and 10thcenturies.