The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 29, no. 7 (March, 1971)

after it was published in 1671 in Rome. Perhaps the best work written on
ecclesiastical dress at that time was Liturgia Romani Pontificis in celebratione
missarum sollemni by Dominico Giorgi (1744), which also treated papal
vestments. Vetus liturgia alemannica . . . by Martin Gerbert (1766) contains
a treatise on sacred dress with rich illustrations of examples that still existed
at that time.
The nineteenth-century revival of interest in religious art and its use in
ecclesiastical services brought about reforms in the shape, texture, and ornamentation
of vestments. Medieval garments were considered, with good
reason, as the ideals in form and design. Investigations of their origin and
development abounded and were followed by numerous defenses of either
side of the resultant controversy: one view held that the vestment was the
natural outgrowth of civil Roman costume, while the other claimed that
ecclesiastical dress stemmed from the ceremonial robes of the Jewish priesthood.
Books were written, mostly by the clergy, to explain the use of vestis
sacra and habitus ecclesiasticus (the former for liturgical functions and the
latter for everyday use). Although no critical methods of stylistic analysis
were applied, these studies should be explored since they not only describe
vestments but quote selected passages on sacred apparel from works of
classical and medieval writers. Besides, a full translation or a commentary was
usually given when it appeared necessary for the elucidation of meaning.
While there have not been as many studies produced in the twentieth
century, many more aspects of the subject have been treated. The neo-Gothic
period in the earlier part of the century saw the publication of works on the
conservation as well as manuals for the proper use and manufacture of church
costumes, taking as examples medieval vestments. Scholarly historical studies
and monographs on church embroidery have been written in our century and
essays dealing with individual vestments have appeared frequently in such
magazines as The Art Bulletin, Artizan Liturgique, The Burlington Magazine,
Christian Art, and Christliche Kunst. Museums with large holdings of medieval
embroidery have published descriptive catalogues of their collections, and
exhibitions in Berlin (1912) on medieval ecclesiastical vestments, in Stockholm
(1928) on Swedish medieval textiles, in London (1930, 1955, and 1963) on
ecclesiastical embroidery, in Munich (1955 and 1961), and in other places,
were accompanied by richly illustrated catalogues that often included evidence
on the history, iconography, and aesthetic value of medieval ecclesiastical dress.
Even though vestments are classified as "Applied Art- costumes (or textiles)
- ecclesiastical" in bibliographies and therefore rarely mentioned in standard
histories of art, a substantial number of the twentieth-century monographs
on medieval textiles deal mostly with artistic expression in church dress.
Eventually, church embroidery may be universally characterized as a fine art
rather than a craft.
The following selective bibliography concentrates on English-language secondary
sources dealing primarily with the history of medieval liturgical
vestments. Some of the works also include everyday clerical garments and
those of the religious orders.
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