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Pope Francis’s Arms

The Vatican released information about Pope Francis’s coat of arms on Monday but the image they provided of it was very poorly drafted. Many of us were waiting for the Italian heraldic artist Marco Foppoli to craft his own rendering of our new pope’s arms, and he has duly released it today (see above).

The central motif is the emblem of the Society of Jesus — the Christogram with nails on a sunburst. The star represents the Blessed Virgin while the sprig of nard-flower represents Saint Joseph, the patron of the universal church. Thus the three emblems on Pope Francis’s arms together represent the Holy Family.

Further info available from Il Foglio, Fr Z, and Whispers in the Loggia.

Signor Foppoli’s renderings of the arms of John Paul II and Benedict XVI are below.

Published at 7:50 pm on Wednesday 20 March 2013. Categories: Errant Thoughts Heraldry Pope Francis Tags: , , .
Comments

I do miss the tiara.

— K. Dontoh 20 Mar 2013 8:06 pm

No fake hats. Archaic hats are OK, but there should be an absolute prohibition on fictitious headgear.

— Titus 20 Mar 2013 8:37 pm

Glad the spikenard is looking more like a flower and less like grapes, though the resemblance to grapes would have its own resonance.

— Fred White 20 Mar 2013 10:01 pm
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