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Marco Foppoli

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. (more…)

March 20, 2013 7:50 pm | Link | 3 Comments »

A new bookplate for the NYG&B

Fr. Guy Selvester reports on his resurrected Shouts in the Piazza blog that the great Marco Foppoli has designed a new bookplate for the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society. Mr. Foppoli is the most highly-regarded heraldic artist of our day, and the influence of the style of his mentor, the late Archbishop Bruno Heim, is apparent in his work.

(more…)

March 19, 2009 12:42 pm | Link | 5 Comments »

The Cardinal Duke of York

The great Marco Foppoli has designed (and very kindly passed along to me) the badge for the committee which has been assembled to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the passing of the Cardinal Duke of York, or King Henry IX and I as was his style according to the Jacobite succession. I’m not entirely sure what events are being planned, but I believe there will be a conference in Rome around the anniversary in August.

January 23, 2007 7:38 pm | Link | 5 Comments »

Cassock Pursuivant

Last night the G&B played host to a lecture by one Fr. Guy Selvester, America’s ecclesiastical heraldist extraordinaire (arms at right). The good Reverend clearly has an unadulterated and unaffected love for heraldry, which, as he was very keen to point out, is unquestionably both an art and a science. He also has flaming red sideburns which give one the vague impression that he was a Civil War chaplain in a past life. After a brief introduction from a member of the G&B’s heraldry committee, the cassocked Father Guy gave a very clear and well-delivered talk, amply displaying his broad and deep knowledge of the subject, especially when responding to off-the-cuff inquiries from the audience.

Of course no talk on ecclesiastical heraldry would be complete without mentioning the late Bruno Heim, the expert on church heraldry as well as Grand Prior of the Constantinian Order and the first full papal nuncio to the Court of St. James since the Reformation. Heim’s book Heraldry in the Catholic Church (available in the St Andrews University Library) is the essential work on the subject. Fr. Selvester interestingly pointed out that Blessed Pope John XXIII intended to found a heraldic authority for the Church. He was dissuaded from this task by none other than Archbishop Heim, who believed the Church covered too far broad a swathe to effectively and appropriately constitute its own heraldic authority mindful of the vernacular traditions. (more…)

September 15, 2005 11:02 am | Link | No Comments »

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