According to tradition and testimony, this chasuble—together
with its matching stole, maniple, chalice cover, chalice veil,
and burse—was made in Sicily, as a gift from his bishop for
Nicolo Spedaliere (also recorded as Spitaleri), head priest of
the mother church of Partanna. It is entirely feasible that the
vestments were made by a women's religious order or at a school
that practiced this type of embroidery. The nearly symmetrical
pattern of full-blown, seminaturalistic flowers, small blossoms,
curving leaves, and scrolls is characteristic of the late
Baroque ornament that appears on some Sicilian and Italian
vestments from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth
century. Similarly typical is the combination of painterly
polychrome silk embroidery, worked in long and short stitches
and French knots, with metal thread couched in a variety of
patterns. Although the chasuble maintains its traditional
surface division into central orphrey and side panels, which
previously may have been of different material