The Napoleon Tiara was a papal tiara given to Pope Pius VII in June 1805 [1] a few months after he presided at the coronation of Napoleon I. While lavishly decorated with jewels, it was deliberately too small and heavy to be worn and meant as an insult to the Pope. In the painting of The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, the tiara is held behind the Pope by one of his aides.
The tiara, which was of traditional papal tiara design, was designed and manufactured by Henri Auguste and Marie-Étienne Nitot of the House of Chaumet in Paris. On a central structure of white velvet there are three crowns of gold, each consisting of a large hoop surmounted with flower-work of wrought leaves, enriched with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires and surrounded with brilliants on a setting of matched and chosen pearls. [2] In total, the tiara included 3,345 precious stones and 2,990 pearls. It cost 179,800 francs. [2]
The tiara carried in its monde the great emerald, which Pope Pius VI had removed from his tiara to pay war reparations required by the Treaty of Tolentino in 1797. [2] The emerald (404.5 carats) [1] was originally part of a tiara worn by Pope Gregory XIII, which was made by Cristoforo Foppa; it displays Gregory XIII's name and coat of arms. [3] The middle of the hoop of each crown contained a bas-relief glorifying Napoleon; they represented the re-establishment of worship (repeal of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy), the Concordat of 1801, and Napoleon's coronation. [2] Additional plaques bore the names of Napoleon's military victories.
At his coronation, Napoleon promised to send the Pope an altar, two ornate ceremonial coaches, and a tiara. Only the tiara was delivered. [4] Tiaras traditionally weighed between 2 and 5 pounds (0.91 and 2.27 kg). The Napoleon Tiara, however, weighed 18 pounds (8.2 kg). It was also too small to fit comfortably on a human head. Some of the jewels and decoration for this tiara came from earlier tiaras smashed and stolen by the troops of the French Directory in 1798, when General Louis-Alexandre Berthier invaded Rome, established the Roman Republic, abolished the Papal States, and exiled Pope Pius VI. His successor, Pope Pius VII, elected in exile in Venice, had to use an improvised papier-mâché tiara for his coronation in 1800.
The tiara was a thinly veiled insult to the Pope. [5] However, the Pope thanked the emperor for the tiara by letter on June 23, 1805. He said that he intended to use the tiara for the Papal Mass on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. [1]
Originally, the middle of the hoop of each crown contained a bas-relief glorifying Napoleon; they represented the re-establishment of religious worship in France with the repeal of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the Concordat of 1801, and Napoleon's coronation. [2] The decorations specific to Napoleon were removed probably by Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, the Cardinal Secretary of State. [6] They were replaced by inscriptions from Scripture (Acts 20:28 at the top, Revelation 11:4 in the middle, and Psalm 85:10 at the bottom).
During the insurrection of 1831, the tiara was buried in the Vatican Gardens and suffered great damage as a result. [1] It was restored in 1834. The size of the tiara was adjusted so that it could be worn. It was used as the coronation tiara for a number of popes, most notably Pope Pius IX on 21 June 1846, [7] and last worn during the First Vatican Council in 1870. [1] With the exception of the emerald and eight rubies in the monde, [6] Pope Benedict XV had the tiara's jewels removed and replaced by replicas made of coloured glass. The jewels were sold to raise money for the victims of the First World War. [8]
Pope Pius VII was head of the Catholic Church from 14 March 1800 to his death in August 1823. He ruled the Papal States from June 1800 to 17 May 1809 and again from 1814 to his death. Chiaramonti was also a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict in addition to being a well-known theologian and bishop.
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, particularly in Commonwealth countries, as an abstract name for the monarchy itself, as distinct from the individual who inhabits it. A specific type of crown is employed in heraldry under strict rules. Indeed, some monarchies never had a physical crown, just a heraldic representation, as in the constitutional kingdom of Belgium.
The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, signed on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace–Lorraine, where it remains in force. It sought national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics and solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France, with most of its civil status restored. This resolved the hostility of devout French Catholics against the revolutionary state. It did not restore the vast Church lands and endowments that had been seized during the French Revolution and sold off. Catholic clergy returned from exile, or from hiding, and resumed their traditional positions in their traditional churches. Very few parishes continued to employ the priests who had accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the revolutionary regime. While the Concordat restored much power to the papacy, the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in Napoleon's favour. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances.
The papal tiara is a crown that is worn by popes of the Catholic Church from as early as the 8th century to the mid–20th century. It was last used by Pope Paul VI in 1963, and only at the beginning of his reign.
A papal coronation is the formal ceremony of the placing of the papal tiara on a newly elected pope. The first recorded papal coronation was of Pope Nicholas I in 858. The most recent was the 1963 coronation of Paul VI, who soon afterwards abandoned the practice of wearing the tiara. To date, none of his successors have used the tiara, and their papal inauguration celebrations have included no coronation ceremony, although any future pope may elect to restore the use of the tiara at any point during his pontificate.
Joseph Cardinal Fesch, Prince of the Empire was a French priest and diplomat, who was the maternal half-uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the wake of his nephew, he became Archbishop of Lyon and cardinal. He was also one of the most famous art collectors of his period, remembered for having established the Musée Fesch in Ajaccio, which remains one of the most important Napoleonic collections of art.
A concordat is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both, i.e. the recognition and privileges of the Catholic Church in a particular country and with secular matters that affect church interests.
The mitre or miter is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in traditional Christianity. Mitres are worn in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, some Lutheran churches, for important ceremonies, by the Metropolitan of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and also, in the Catholic Church, all cardinals, whether or not bishops, and some Eastern Orthodox archpriests.
Vehementer Nos was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius X on 11 February 1906. He denounced the French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State enacted two months earlier. He condemned its unilateral abrogation of the Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon I and Pope Pius VII that had granted the Catholic Church a distinctive status and established a working relationship between the French government and the Holy See. The title of the document is taken from its opening words in Latin, which mean "We with vehemence".
Papal regalia and insignia are the official items of attire and decoration proper to the Pope in his capacity as the visible head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State.
The papal conclave that followed the death of Pius VI on 29 August 1799 lasted from 30 November 1799 to 14 March 1800 and led to the selection of Cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti, who took the name Pius VII. This conclave was held in Venice and was the last to take place outside Rome. This period was marked by uncertainty for the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church following the invasion of the Papal States and abduction of Pius VI under the French Directory.
The Noble Guard was one of the household guard units serving the Pope, and formed part of the military in Vatican City. It was formed by Pope Pius VII in 1801 as a regiment of heavy cavalry, and abolished in 1970 by Pope Paul VI following Vatican II. Conceived as the Pope's personal guard, the unit provided a mounted escort for the Pope when he moved about Rome in his carriage and mounted guard outside his apartments in the papal palaces. The guardsmen were also available for special missions within the Papal States at the behest of the pope. One of their first major duties was to escort Pius VII to Paris for the Coronation of Napoleon I in 1804.
Giovanni Battista Caprara Montecuccoli was an Italian statesman and cardinal and archbishop of Milan from 1802 to 1810. As a papal diplomat he served in the embassies in Cologne, Lausanne, and Vienna. As Legate of Pius VII in France, he implemented the Concordat of 1801, and negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon over the matter of appointments to the restored hierarchy in France. He crowned Napoleon as King of Italy in Milan in 1805.
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The relationship between Napoleon and the Catholic Church was an important aspect of his rule.
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