By USI Università della Svizzera italiana
by Giovanna Caligiuri, Charlotte Stachel, & Lorenzo Cantoni
The Making of a Masterpiece
The Vestment of Don Nicola Mazza: from a female institute in 1800s Verona to “Heavenly Bodies” at the MET
ReadThe “Heavenly Bodies” exhibition at the MET
The most well-attended MET exhibition ever gave the world access to an incredibly prestigious artefact, only showcased in public three times in its almost 200 years of history, a very precious set of embroidered liturgical garments: Don Mazza’s Vestment (Paramento di Don Mazza).
Don Nicola Mazza and his mission
Born in Verona on March 10, 1790, Nicola Mazza was ordained a Catholic priest in 1814 and served his community until his death, on August 2, 1865. These two dates overlap with the period of Habsburg domination in the Veneto region from 1815 to 1866.
Working and experimenting with silk
These years shook Veronese society and the silk trade. Don Mazza, a seminary teacher and examiner of priests, saw society as key to progress. Son of a silk merchant, he extensively experimented with silkworms (1842) and later warned against raw silk exports, promoting local weaving (1847).
He published further experiments aimed to combat an epidemic killing silkworms (1854-56), proposed the use of the steam boiler in the local silk production (1852), and was involved in the project of establishing a local spinning society (1858).
The beginning of a female institute
“Society must do it,” he used to say — and he did. Beside founding a male institute, in 1828 he founded a female one, to save girls from the streets, teaching mending, embroidery, and languages.
An institute to cultivate the art of embroidery
Determined to make his students self-sufficient thanks to mastering a profession and to support his charity work, the Institute became an embroidery school and factory, running a large spinning mill equipped with one hundred stoves for production.
Perfecting the technique
Don Mazza, with his students, perfected dyeing techniques and created a rich range of colors. He grew mulberry trees for silkworms and developed methods for fine silk. Between 1838 and 1845, experiments produced strong, delicate silk from 100+ looms, with 300-350 students by 1844.
Embroidery made in the Institute (2023)USI Università della Svizzera italiana
First steps towards the “Paramento”
In 1838, an artificial flower laboratory was also inaugurated, and the Institute earned praise and awards; in June 1841, Don Mazza sent the Empress of Austria Maria Anna Carolina Pia “some flowers, and a humeral veil as a small sample of what these young girls do”.
The making of it
Success in embroidery and financial need led Don Mazza to showcase the exceptional Institute’s skills with a "quarto" vestment. Begun in 1845, work stopped in 1848 due to military occupation. In 1852, he sent it to the Empress, gaining praise and funding to continue his mission.
Example of the three steps needed to create an embroidery (top left). In particular: transition from a painting (top right), to a preparatory cardboard (bottom left), to embroidery (bottom right).
The Paramento: technique and iconography
To create it, Don Mazza defined a complex iconographic program, and commissioned Caliari, Fiamminghi, and Pelesina, emerging painters of his time, to make copies of major paintings by Raffaello, Cavazzola, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Orbetto.
Fifteen master embroiderers
The work was carried out by as many as fifteen skilled embroiderers, from Italy and Africa, who worked on cardboards created from the paintings, but also directly on the paintings themselves, as evidenced by their comments, and even prayers, written on the backs of the frames.
Preparatory cardboards
An example of a preparatory cardboard from the Institute archive, with the drawing to be executed: this was then reported on a perforated paper synopsis that was applied to the silk and dusted with graphite, where the trace to follow for the embroidery remained.
In 1861, after about ten years of work, the vestment was completed and sent to the court in Prague; here, the reception was such that Emperor Ferdinand decided to gift it to Pope Pius IX, with these words:
"Most Blessed Father! I have received from Verona a Priestly Ornament made there in one of the pious Institutes founded and directed by the much-deserving priest Don Nicola Mazza, and it seems to me to be something not unworthy of Your Excellency. My heart expands with supreme joy at the thought of being able to make an offering of it to You.”
To which the Pope replied:
"And here has arrived in excellent condition the magnificent Church apparatus that Your Majesty was pleased to send me, and which forms the admiration of me and of all those who see it, for the precision, the nobility, and the beauty of the work; for which much praise must be given to those pious Institutes of Verona, where the work was done and to the worthy founder of the same Don Nicola Mazza.”
The Paramento
The Paramento consists of 14 pieces, between the vestments for the presbytery and his two ministers, and the drapes protecting the Eucharist completely embroidered in the finest silk, gold, and silver thread depicting a sum of 25 scenes, 13 major and 12 minor, with as many as 62 human figures as well as animals and landscapes.
The embroidery of a flower taken from a piece originally made for the vestment, but later discarded (2023)USI Università della Svizzera italiana
All scenes are framed by a very refined baroque scroll motif, in which golden swirls intertwine with flowering shoots, showing a delicate and rich chromatism that highlights the unbelievable pictorial naturalism.
Don Mazza’s legacy
The Vestment was used in religious functions until 1870, when Pius IX, fearing its ruin, placed it in the Sistine Chapel’s treasury as a “precious monument of art.” It was shown only three times: at the Baths of Diocletian, in 1989 in Verona, and at the MET...
This digital exhibition was developed by Giovanna Caligiuri, Charlotte Stachel and Lorenzo Cantoni, under the UNESCO Chair at USI.
A special thank to Teresa Zaja and her team at the Museo della Seta and to the late don Domenico Romani for sharing their knowledge and passion.
Photos were taken at the Museo dell'Arte del Ricamo, Via Nicola Mazza 14, Verona (Italy).
Ideas have been collected by the group projects of students in the Bachelor of Communication at USI as part of the course ICT for Cultural Heritage (academic year 2024-25*), taught by Stefano Tardini and Lorenzo Cantoni.
* Lara Ardu, Lisa Esposito, Ikranur Binnaz Kaymak, Sara Marchini, Gaia Matteis, Elinor Puccetti, Maria Grazia Spina, Beatrice Zacon.
