The Papal Tiara in Sacred Historiography

Abstract: This article sets out historiographical engagement with the papal tiara since the late sixteenth century, examining the range of questions asked about the object and the motivations behind them. Early modern Catholic writers developed a consistent line of inquiry into the tiara based on an evolving agenda to affirm the pope’s majesty. More recent scholars, though motivated by very different concerns, have nevertheless retained many of their lines of questioning. Indifference to practical questions about exactly how the tiara was used as a ceremonial object has sometimes been a feature of this discourse. However, contemporary discussion of the tiara’s medieval origins now integrates it. The oddity that tiaras have still been produced for late twentieth- and twenty-first century popes needs to be included in the story told.