Since it was first presented at the latest Venice Film Festival The Young Pope, a Sky/HBO/Canal+ co-production by Oscar-winning film director Paolo Sorrentino, attracted the attention of many critics. Starring Jude Law as Lenny Belardo raised from the age of eight by nuns and elected as pontiff Pius XIII, the series is drenched in the slow surreal and dream moments that characterized The Great Beauty.
Imagine Federico Fellini's obsessions with Catholicism filtered through digitally polished lenses for a younger generation and you get the idea (see the nuns playing football and the long and static scenes with grand and blissful music in Sorrentino's series and compare them with Fellini's hilariously decadent religious catwalk show in Roma to get an idea). The costumes are extremely lavish, and created by Luca Canfora and Carlo Poggioli (Irenebrination readers will remember him as the costume designer for Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem and Neil Burger's Divergent) with some great help from the local tailoring houses serving the Vatican.
In Sorrentino's series Pius XIII only wears Havaianas when he gets up in the morning (and drinks Cherry Coke Zero for breakfast...), but he is essentially a conservative pope who hopes to restore the church to its former glory, hence the lavish garments and accessories, at times covered in embroideries, that seem to go back in time to celebrate the pomp and circumstance of the Catholic church.
If you have developed an interest for the costumes in this series, you should definitely check out the recently opened exhibition "Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery" at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
The Latin title means "English work" and was employed in the 13th century to describe highly-prized and luxurious embroideries made in England using silk, gold and silver thread.
Kings, queens, popes and cardinals throughout Europe sought these pieces and commissioned the skilled crafts men and women in London to make these garments characterized by elaborate imagery.
Nowadays we maybe talk or write about embroidery only in connection with Haute Couture or with specific art projects, but there was a time when embroiderying was an art in itself and a way to express spiritual and temporal power.
The lavish and magnificent embroideries in these pieces included indeed symbols and stories. The over 100 hand-made objects on display - from the V&A collections and on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but also cathedrals in Italy and Spain, Iceland, and the Vatican - go from copes and stoles to gold and silk slippers that belonged to a bisohop, but there are also secular pieces.
There's plenty to see, from a seal-bag dated around 1100 - 1140 made to contain the seal from a foundation document of Westminster Abbey to a luxurious red velvet horse trapper probably made for Edward III's.
Gold and silver threads dotted with gemstones and tiny pearls tell the stories from the lives of saints and martyrs, show scenes of angels playing the lute intertwined with flowers, trees, lions, horses, goats, dragons and birds, on coloured silk backgrounds.
The Toledo Cope (from Toledo's Catedral Primada de Santa Maria), embroidered with foliage and birds, and featuring the Virgin Mary and saints (some of them are portrayed trampling on their tormentors) has also got an architectural twist since it features gothic arches framing the scenes.
The richly-worked Jesse Cope depicts the Tree of Jesse, that is a vine springing from the body of Jesse, and sheltering prophets and ancestors of Christ, while an intricately-decorated cope adorned with statuesque saints and angels was loaned by the Vatican Museums in Rome.
The crimson velvet Butler-Bowden Cope features saints and prophets, enthroned angels holding stars covered in delicate tiny pearls.
Some pieces, such as the Bologna Cope, show the popularisation of the cult of St Thomas Beckett, while the Hólar Vestments (originally from the Cathedral church at Hólar in Iceland) depict Icelandic saints and were probably commissioned by a wealthy merchant (the thread decorating them is almost pure gold).
There is also a jerkin (fitted jacket or tunic) worn by Edward the Black Prince, renowned for his role in the defeat of the French army at the Battle of Crécy and that hung over his tomb in Canterbury cathedral for 700 years.
The heart of the exhibition focuses on the monumental embroidery created in the first half of the 14th century, when English embroidery achieved its greatest popularity and status in Europe. Some of the most complex and ambitious copes (ceremonial cloaks) ever made for use in church services are included in the exhibition.
The Daroca Cope, which portrays scenes from the Creation of the World and Fall of Adam and Eve is one such unique survival, as Old Testament iconography was rarely depicted in English medieval embroidery.
The exhibition also explores the period from 1350 to the English Reformation of the 1530s. It considers the damaging impact of the Reformation on English embroidery, which led to the destruction of many precious embroidered church vestments made with opulent materials.
Those that survived were either altered to suit the new religious requirements, they were cut up and reused (parts of a cope were for example turned into an altar cloth for a parish church and therefore survived up to our times), they were taken abroad or were hidden by Catholic families concealing their faith.
Some of the earliest pieces came to us in a peculiar way: many embroideries were made for secular use at the time, but very few survive today as they were either worn out or became unfashionable, but other examples of religious embroideries were interred during the burial rites of bishops and abbots and therefore survived in good conditions.
Clare Browne, co-curator and textiles specialist, states in an official press release: "The exquisite attention to detail in these embroidered works makes them not just impressive examples of craftsmanship and luxury materials, but also vivid glimpses of life both in reality and in the medieval imagination. From the grim torture of martyred saints to a mother's tender swaddling of her new-born baby, scenes are depicted with a meticulous precision that the sophisticated embroidery techniques made possible."
This is actually an important point as the garments featured in the event could be used also to analyse the various techniques developed across three centuries.
The works are juxtaposed to panel paintings, manuscripts, metalwork and sculptures, and rare tools found in London, including scissors, iron needles and a thimble that belonged to the artisans who created these astonishing embroideries.
A number of embroidery-focused events, short courses and practical workshops complement this exhibition, which is also supported by British embroidery house Hand & Lock (producing ecclesiastical, ceremonial, military and fashion embroidery since 1767).
This is actually the last chance to see these pieces as they are too fragile and will probably not be displayed again.
And while this exhibition may result a bit too intense for mere fashion lovers, students studying costumes, embroidery and textiles should't miss it.
There are indeed many lessons to be learnt among the intricate decorations covering these rare pieces and they will be revealed to all those visitors who will take the time to absorb the information accompanying the displays and let the threads speak and tell their stories.
The exhibition "Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery" runs at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, until 5 February 2017.
Image credits for this post
2-14 Installation images, Opus Anglicanum at the V&A
15. Part of a horse trapper probably made for Edward III' Court (detail), Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée de Cluny – Musée National du Moyen Âge) / Franck Raux
16. Stained glass seraph, (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
17. The Chichester-Constable Chasuble, ca. 1335-45, © 2016. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
18. The De Lisle Psalter (detail), ca. 1320, © The British Library Board, Arundel 83
19. The Syon Cope (detail), 1310-1320, (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
20. The Syon Cope, 1310-1320, (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
21. The Steeple Aston Cope (detail), 1310-40, (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
22. The Jesse Cope (detail), ca. 1310-25, (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London
23. The Dunstable Swan Jewel, ca. 1400, © The Trustees of the British Museum
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