Vatican Phaleras

They are sometimes confused: the Holy See, as a spiritual entity, representing the Pope and the Roman curia, and the Vatican City State, as a temporal entity. As a subject of international law, the Vatican thus maintains diplomatic relations with other States, and therefore has marks of reward: equestrian orders, medals of civil or military merit called Benemerenti, Cross Pro Ecclesia and Pontifice, special marks of honour, commemorative or award medals awarded for military service or for participation in a major event, prizes awarded in the name of the Pope to students, professors, academics. These medals are innumerable, enough to delight numismatists and lovers of phaleristics. Dominican Henneresse, who presents herself as a "passionate collector", has achieved the feat of cataloguing these orders of awards and medals and presenting them with the rigour of a historian. They appear, according to their different models, in one thousand nine hundred illustrations, making her work - of weight - a true art book, thanks to an elegant and clear composition and layout.

Bertrand Galimard Flavigny
The Drouot Gazette, No. 4 of 31 January 2020