Discovery of a "nugget"!

Robert Seniso, a renowned expert, discovered in Italy in the autumn of 2019 a piece of extreme rarity: a badge of office of cameraman of honour of cape and sword di numero. It is reproduced only by a drawing dating from 1933 in the book Orders and Decorations of the Holy See. This exceptional piece has joined a private collection.

The function of cameraman of cloak and sword, i.e. the lay servant of the pope, appeared at the end of the 16th century. In addition to the secret cameramen, all of whom were originally from noble families, there were also honorary cameramen, probably in the 17th century, so as not to exclude those who were not noble from these functions. In 1877, Pope Pius IX created the function of camerer di numero; they had the function of supervising the other cameramen. Unlike the other cameramen, they were appointed for life. Their number was very limited: there were four secret cameramen di numero and four honorary cameramen di numero. They wore a distinctive badge, with a red background for the secret cameramen and blue for the honorary cameramen. In 1968, Pope Paul VI substituted them with a single class of "Gentleman of His Holiness". Following the research carried out, since the case in which it is housed bears the coat of arms of Pope Pius XI, the insignia presented above can be attributed almost certainly to one or other of these two persons, Comm. Pius Manzia (appointed in 1930), Maestro di casa of the Holy Apostolic Palaces, or Prof. Comm. Angelo Silvagni (appointed in 1935), professor of Christian epigraphy at the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology.