Friday, June 05, 2009

Rome: where to get a nice and cheap surplice...

As everybody knows, you pay too much in Rome. Too, cadre of quality is important.

However, there's still some few nuns left who can make the old stuff and they do fine work.

It's still expensive, yes, but not as much as anywhere else.

Congregazione delle Figlie di San Giuseppe de Rivalba
Lungotevere Farnesia, 7
00165 Roma

You have to speak Italian and have to visit their place down the Tiber from the Vatican to pick out what you want and how you want it and then they will measure you.

These sisters make the finest altar linens, albs and surplices - new or old looking, just tell them what you want.

Liturgy is knowing the unknowable and expressing the inexpressible and this is to be reflected, too, in liturgical dress.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How much?

Anonymous said...

What you need to find for us is the convent where Gammarelli orders his vestments. I bet they will be much cheaper directly at the source.

Anonymous said...

It is too much for what they have, plus there are few choices.
And cranky...

John Paul Sonnen said...

"how much?" is an odd question - it depends what you order!

gammarelli is no longer the rex - tridentinum is better, cheaper and quicker.

yes, the nuns are cranky; no they do not have few choices; and no it is not too much for what they have (100% linen and hand-made lace always comes with a cost!).

Quentin said...

Not knocking Tridentinum - who are wonderful - but Gammarelli still has the pedigree !

On the subject of cost, it would be much appreciated to have some ideas of what the nuns' prices are - for basic small linens, for instance, and perhaps for fairly simple albs and surplices ?