The Vatican Cope
Art, Style and Design from Westminster to Rome
Hardback (Published)
(September 2026)
ISBN: 9781915487537
8.9 x 11.02 inches
Price: $157.00
This volume reviews the evidence for the production of ‘opus anglicanum’ in London during the thirteenth century and provides stylistic evidence for dating for placing the cope within the orbit of the Westminster court during the reign Edward I (1272-1307).
This third volume in the series, Studies in English Medieval Embroidery, is a monograph dedicated to the Vatican Cope. It is edited by Dr. M. A. Michael head of the Opus Anglicanum Project at the University of Glasgow with Italian translations by Dr Jane Bridgeman.
Gifts of English embroidery (opus anglicanum) were regularly sent by the Kings and Queens of England from Westminster to Rome. Many were sent directly to the Pope and others were commissioned by senior churchmen. The Vatican’s Cope only arrived in its collections in 1915, but its design reflects known works at Westminster Abbey and its iconography suggests that it was gifted to the Pope before 1295, during the reign of Boniface VIII.
This volume will be the first detailed investigation of the iconographical cycle depicted on the cope since the study made by Rensselaer W. Lee in 1932. It reviews the evidence for the production of ‘opus anglicanum’ in London during the thirteenth century and provides stylistic evidence securely placing the cope within the orbit of the court of Edward I (1272–1307) at Westminster. A new investigation of the documentary evidence surrounding the acquisition of the cope by the Vatican in the first years of the twentieth century sheds new light on its provenance, and a full report is provided on the recent conservation of the cope before its exhibition in London and Lisbon in 2016–17.
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