The Papal Cavalcade: Why did Pope Leo XIV process through the city like a Roman Caesar?
Newsdesk (26/05/2025 16:26, Gaudium Press) Pope Leo XIV, Bishop of Rome, took possession of his ‘Cathedra Romana’ on Sunday, May 25th. From St. Peter’s Basilica, he proceeded across the city to his Episcopal Seat, the ‘Papal Archbasilica of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist in the Lateran’, more simply known as ‘St. John Lateran‘.
This ceremonial, more than a century and a half after the formal end of the temporal power of the popes, is significantly simpler than in the past but remains, as it always was, eminently spiritual in character, with historical roots going back many centuries.
Papal cavalcade
It is said that the first ‘Papal Cavalcade’ occurred with Pope Nicholas IV on April 27th, 854. Others date it back further, to Leo III in 795, while Boniface VIII’s in 1295 was described with great pomp in Latin hexameters. Another example of special pomp was the inauguration of Pope Leo X on April 11th, 1513.
Francesco Guicciardini wrote in this regard that ‘the first action of the new Pontificate was his Coronation, carried out, according to the custom of his predecessors, in the Church of St. John Lateran, with such pomp – as much by his family and court, as by all the prelates and many lords who had gathered there, and by the Roman people – that everyone confessed that they had never seen in Rome, after the inflooding of the barbarians, a more magnificent and splendid day than this’.
The procession marched slowly, with solemnity and pomp.Hundreds of people were dressed in their finest clothes, precious fabrics, embroidery and colourful feathers, some on foot, others on horseback. There seemed to be no end. A winding queue whose order of precedence was regulated with millimetre precision. A meticulous hierarchy, regulated by the different papal ordinances that followed one another over the centuries.
The newly elected pope had just been crowned in St. Peter’s and was now on his way to the Basilica of St. John Lateran for his enthronement. This was his first official public act. This procession showed the people crowded along the narrow streets or squares the face of the new Pontiff, but also that of his collaborators and associates, and therefore also had an important significance as an affirmation of his authority.
The ‘Papal Cavalcade’ – as it was called – was a ceremony with very ancient origins and full of complex allegorical, liturgical, religious and political meanings.
Impressive depictions are provided by various engravings, as well as a fresco, in the Vatican Library: a long procession in the shape of a serpent, in various horizontal registers. Below each group of people, a note explains who they are: groups of cardinals on horseback, members of the clergy, nobles, papal militia, foreigners, grooms, footmen and so on. Some figures have disappeared over time and others have appeared, such as the Consistory Lawyers, who have been present since the 17th century.
The Pope would leave the Vatican – the departure, exitus in Latin – and walk along the Borgo, cross the Ponte Sant’Angelo and take the Via Papalis (today Via dei Banchi Nuovi, Via del Governo Vecchio, Piazza Pasquino, Piazza San Pantaleo, Piazza di Aracoeli), arriving at the Campidoglio, where he would ascend (adscensus) and, at the Palazzo Senatorio, meet the city authorities who were paying homage to him. The descent led to the Roman Forum, the ruins of which stretched along the ancient Via Sacra. The Pope passed under the triumphal arches of Septimius Severus, Titus and Constantine and also under a temporary wooden arch in the Farnese Gardens. He walked along ancient ruins, but also monuments that were still standing, such as the Colosseum.
Symbols linking past and present
This route had a very strong symbolic meaning of continuity between the memory of the Roman Empire, now confined to History, and the present of the Papacy, whose Vicar, like a legitimate successor to the Caesars, was now parading through the city in triumph. It also served as a warning about the transience of earthly things for, the same time, during the Coronation, the Cardinal Protodeacon addressed him with the phrase Sic transit gloria mundi, ‘Thus passes the glory of the world’, and he burned a cloth. In fact, the entire ceremony, right up to the final act of enthronement, reminded the new pontiff of the transience of earthly things.
A metaphor for pilgrimage
After passing through the Forum, the Papal Procession travelled the last stretch of the Via Papalis until it reached its destination, the Lateran Basilica. This long route is practically the same one followed by pilgrims and jubilarians to the Basilica. It wasn’t an easy route: the roads at that time were winding, damp, dark and quite narrow. The Via Papalis, or Via Papae, was only widened and paved in 1588, under Sixtus V. It was a procession with spiritual significance, a pilgrimage, and allegorically linked the Jerusalem of the West, St. Peter, to the Jerusalem of the East, St. John.
Means of transport
From the 12th century onwards, the Pope rode on a white mule, taking on various symbolic meanings. The Gospels tell us that on Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey or colt; in the Bible, Zechariah foretold the coming of the Messiah ‘humble and mounted on a donkey, a colt, the foal of an ass’. Finally, the white donkey, known as the ‘chinea’, was the tribute paid by the King of Naples to the Papal State, established in the 13th century and abolished in 1885.
During the Renaissance, the horse came to be used as an analogy for chivalrous nobility, to demonstrate even externally the dignity of the Vicar of Christ. In addition, the horse elevated those who rode it, making people who looked at him and acclaimed him realize his majesty, which was both spiritual and temporal. In the 16th century, the litter was used, and in the following century, the carriage. From 1939, with Pius XII, the means of transport became the automobile.
It was also Pope Pacelli, Pius XII, who resumed the ancient custom of ‘taking possession’ which had been interrupted by several pontificates, from Leo XIII to Pius XI. After the seizure of Rome in 1870, the Papal State had in fact remained confined within the Leonine walls. The city had been lost and, with it, the temporal power of the Pope, who from then on was no longer King, but Pastor, of the Universal Church. In those years, the rites associated with the election were all held in St. Peter’s Basilica. Even the Habemus Papam, the announcement of the pope-elect, was not pronounced from the Loggia, facing the square and therefore Urbi et Orbi, but inside the Basilica itself. Naturally, the papal procession to the Basilica of St. John Lateran was also suspended.
Despite resuming the custom, with Pope Pius XII, times had changed, and the inauguration became a car journey much more sober and simple. Even so, though the ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ may be more muted than in past centuries, it is clear, from the reception of our new Pontiff during this most recent Papal Cavalcade, that the enthusiasm of the people remains as fervent as ever.
With information from Vatican news
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Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
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