Rome’s Gammarelli tailors traditionally prepare the vestments for the new pope — but say this time the Vatican will use cassocks from previous elections, in what may be a homage to the environmentally conscious Pope Francis.
Once Francis is laid to rest, the Vatican will announce a conclave in which red-hatted cardinals from around the world vote for a new pope.
The Gammarellis are currently racing to kit out those arriving for the conclave, but at this point they’d normally be preparing virgin papal cassocks too.
For generations the tailors, whose shop was founded in 1798, have prepared three white cassocks — tall, medium or small — to fit new pontiffs whatever their size.
The new pope hurriedly dons the closest-fitting one in the minutes following his election, before stepping out onto St Peter’s balcony to the cry of “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a pope!”).
“We have dressed every pope since at least the beginning of the 20th century”, said Lorenzo Gammarelli, who runs the shop with three cousins.
This time around however, “We were told by the Vatican that they have taken care of it,” Gammarelli told AFP.
He said he believed the vestments for the new pope would “be those of the previous conclaves, because each time we made three robes and they used only one”.
While in the past the Vatican has occasionally asked for fewer than three — “because they clearly still had some” still available, this is the first it has not requested any at all, the 52-year-old said.
As to whether it might be a request reflecting the wishes of Francis, a frugal man who spurned excess and hated waste, Gammarelli replied: “I imagine so.”
Size of papal contenders
Papal portraits line the wall of the shop, which sits a stone’s throw from the Pantheon.
Its shelves are heavy with colourful bolts of fabric, while glass cabinets display socks designed for all sorts of Roman Catholic outfits, from popes to bishops, priests and seminarians.
New popes wear the cassock with a pellegrina, or short cape, a white silk sash and a white “zucchetto”, or papal skullcap.
It usually takes three-and-a-half days to cut the cloth for one complete cassock, prepare it and sew it by hand.
“Since we do not know who the new Holy Father will be… we look at the possible contenders, we take the measurements of those we can, and we make vestments that are more or less suitable,” Gammarelli said.
However, “an outsider can always be elected, or someone who has completely different measurements”, he said.
Gammarelli said he thought it likely there was someone on hand to adjust the cassock if necessary when the new pope donned it for the first time.
Wrong outfit
When Italian Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, “he had been one of the possible candidates and we had made one of the three cassocks exactly to his size”, Gammarelli said.
“But in the heat of the moment, they put him in another one which did not fit him, so they had to cut open the back and then pin it so he could appear on the balcony.
“The day after, my grandfather — who at the time ran the shop — received a phone call and he said, ‘But what happened? It’s not possible!’
“My grandfather went to the Vatican and said ‘This was the right box!’ And since then we have put a label with the name of the most likely candidate on it.”
This year is a special holy Jubilee year, so the family was already working flat out even without the conclave.
But Gammarelli, who took over the business with his cousins in 2016, admitted he was “a little bit disappointed” not to be outfitting the new pope.
“In the sadness of the moment due to the death of Pope Francis, the positive thing was that we were making the robes for the new Holy Father.
“We’ll see for the next one,” he said.
And while the shop window would usually showcase the three cassocks before they were sent to the Vatican, it now features just one solitary skullcap — ordered by Francis, but never worn.
