Traditionally, all popes wore purple footwear — earlier than Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, whose tenure lasted almost three a long time, exercised his proper to choose out and switched to a extra demure burgundy. (In addition they wore purple indoor slippers, earlier than Pope Paul VI discontinued the follow, for good, in 1963.)
The colour has a wide range of significances: Some imagine it’s a reminder of Jesus’ bloodied toes when he was crucified, whereas others imagine it represents the spilled blood of Catholic martyrs. Historic kings are said to have worn red as a logo of standing, for the reason that dye required to make it got here from uncommon sea snails; aristocrats and royalty continued the custom, and a few imagine the church adopted the colour as a means for popes to say their equal “worldly authority.”
When Benedict opted to revive the red-shoes custom, they had been a sensation. Rocco Palmo, the Philadelphia-based editor of the Catholic information website Whispers within the Loggia, nonetheless remembers seeing them for the primary time in individual in 2008. “My first thought to myself was, ‘Oh my God, these footwear are actually purple.’ Regardless of having been fairly aware of them, there was one thing within the flesh that made them pop,” he says now, with amusing.
The Prada rumor, which originated within the Italian press, Palmo says, “was sort of the start of, you understand, the web with the ability to say one thing, whatever the veracity of it.”
The Vatican later clarified that the footwear had been custom-made for him not by Prada however by different Italian cobblers. Some had been by Antonio Arellano, primarily based in Rome. Others had been by Adriano Stefanelli, within the northwest Italian metropolis of Novara. Stefanelli shared with The Washington Submit a 2005 letter from the Vatican formally inviting him to design footwear for the brand new pope. “The Holy Father wears footwear in measurement 42, regular,” it reads, in Italian, “and has no foot issues by any means.”
When Esquire named Pope Benedict to its record of Finest-Dressed Males in 2007 and specifically called out his footwear, Stefanelli tells The Submit in an electronic mail, it “made me well-known internationally, which fills me with pleasure.”
Benedict would go on to revive a number of different papal clothes traditions as effectively. In 2006, he wore a red cappello romano sun hat (also referred to as a saturno), a mode that hadn’t been worn since earlier than John Paul II. And that got here a 12 months after what Vatican-watchers keep in mind as a uncommon internet-breaking pope trend second: the Christmas camauro of 2005. A couple of days earlier than the vacation, at a particular outside version of his weekly “common viewers” look, Benedict wore a standard papal winter head-covering, traditionally product of purple velvet with a white ermine trim. Which appears — uncannily, adorably — like a Santa Claus hat. The model had not been worn by a pope since John XXIII, who died in 1963.
Many have taken Benedict’s returning-to-traditions clothes selections as proof of his staid, returning-to-traditions strategy to Catholic doctrine. Palmo sees it barely in a different way.
Benedict was far more introverted and scholarly than his charismatic predecessor, Palmo notes, and as soon as known as his huge ebook assortment his “previous buddies.” Of the Christmas camauro, Palmo posits that the climate was chilly and the pope merely reached for one thing that had been stashed away within the archives of the church. However to Palmo, that in itself was telling: “I believe it did converse to — to a level, no less than — his theological emphases,” Palmo says, “in that the church has rather a lot hanging round that could possibly be helpful.”
Palmo additionally interprets Benedict’s journeys into the deep recesses of the Vatican costume closet as statements of his dedication to placing the papacy earlier than the pope. Others, like John Paul II and Francis, have included their very own private kinds into what they wore on the job. Benedict, in distinction, wore the vesture like a uniform, emphasizing his notion of the papacy not as a glamorous appointment however as the standard, humbling job of main the Catholic church. The strategy is becoming, Palmo notes, for the primary man in a thousand years to resign from being the pope, leaving the workplace not like a king however like somebody whose tour of responsibility has concluded.
Upon his resignation, Benedict retired his purple footwear in favor of brown leather-based loafers made in León, Mexico. How a pope emeritus ought to gown, after all, was a query with out a longtime reply; as Palmo places it, “the entire idea of the Pope Emeritus was invented on the fly.” However Benedict’s eventual uniform was clearly aimed toward creating distance from the brand new pope. He additionally ditched the mozzetta (a cape historically worn over the shoulders of the pope) in addition to the pope’s conventional sash.
“For a church with an extended historical past, together with a historical past of rival claimants to the papacy, setting cautious precedents was necessary,” Arthur P. Urbano wrote in America magazine in 2013. “Placing apart purple footwear reserves the privileged mixture of white and purple for the brand new pope.” Pope Francis, nevertheless, has made black orthopedics made by Argentinian shoemaker Carlos Samaria his signature look.
Historically, popes have been buried of their ceremonial purple footwear. Will the once-in-a-millennium pope emeritus be buried in them, too? Palmo speculates so. “The footwear will, in all probability, be there.”
Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.
