THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Elisabetta Povoledo
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| Religious vestments represent "the transcendent dimension, the dimension of the religious mystery," said Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's de factor culture minister. Credit Domenico Stinellis/Associated Press
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ROME---On Monday, the painting-lined gallery hosted royalty of a different sort, when some of fashion’s biggest names met with Vatican luminaries to preview the exhibit “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” which will open at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 10. The items lent by the Vatican feature exquisitely crafted clothing and accessories, with intricate patchworks of gold and silver thread embroidery, as well as bejeweled tiaras and miters. Cardinal Ravasi noted that the liturgical vestment “represents above all the transcendent dimension, the dimension of the religious mystery, and that’s why it is ornate, because that which is divine is considered splendid, marvelous, sumptuous, grandiose.” [
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| The miter of Pope Pius XI, dating to 1929, is among the items that the Vatican will lend to the Met. Credit Domenico Stinellis/Associated Press
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