Textile Fabrics / A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum

by Daniel Rock

7674.

Missal Cushion; ground, red silk; pattern, two angels standing face to face and holding between them a cross, all in gold, excepting the angels’ faces and hands, which are white; there are four tassels, one at each corner, crimson and gold. Florentine, early 15th century. 1 foot 3 inches by 1 foot.

The covering for this cushion is made of orphrey web, the gold of which is very much faded; and, like other specimens from the same looms, shows the nudes of the figures in a pinkish white. The use of such cushions for upholding the missal upon the altar is even now kept up in some places. According to the rubric of the Roman Missal, wherein, at the beginning among the “rubricæ generales,” cap. xx. it is directed that there should be “in cornu epistolæ (altaris) cussinus supponendus missali.”