Papal Coats of Arms

Papal Coats Of Arms

For at least 800 years, each pope has had his own personal coat of arms, in addition to the coat of arms of the Holy See. Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) is probably the first who used personal arms, but the first of whom a contemporary coat of arms survives is Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303). Arms were attributed to earlier popes in the 17th century.

All recent popes' coats of arms included an image of the papal tiara as an external ornament of the escutcheon, until Benedict XVI replaced it with the mitre and pallium (see article: Coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI). Another external ornament is a gold key and a silver key, representing the power to bind and to loose on earth (silver) and in heaven (gold), a reference to Matthew 16:18-19:

"You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The gold key signifies that the power reaches to heaven and the silver key that it extends to all the faithful on earth, the interlacing indicating the linking between the two aspects of the power, and the arrangement with the handles of the keys at the base symbolizes that the power is in the hands of the pope.