# Coronation Mantle of Roger II > Royal Workshop of the Norman Court, Palermo (the khizana / dar al-tiraz) - 1133/34 CE (Hijri year 528) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/palermo-royal-workshop/coronation-mantle-roger-ii-vienna/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-27 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Royal Workshop of the Norman Court, Palermo (the khizana / dar al-tiraz) - **Date:** 1133/34 CE (Hijri year 528) - **Medium:** Red silk samite dyed with kermes, embroidered with gold thread (couched, brick-pattern) and coloured silk floss in chain stitch, set with pearls, gold cloisonne enamel plaques and gemstones - **Dimensions:** 345 cm across the straight edge by 146 cm to the curved hem (a semicircle). Reported weight varies sharply between sources, from about 11 kg to about 50 kg; the discrepancy is unresolved, see notes_for_editor. - **Object type:** Textile - **Period:** Norman Sicily, twelfth century (Hauteville dynasty) - **Current location:** Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer (Imperial Treasury), Hofburg - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A semicircle of red silk, embroidered with gold, pearls, enamel and gems, made in the royal workshop of Palermo in 1133/34 for Roger II of Sicily. Its Kufic Arabic inscription names the workshop and gives the date; its central image is a stylised tree of life flanked by two lions each bringing down a camel. The mantle was made by Muslim craftsmen for a Christian Norman king, and within a century it had become coronation regalia carried north through the Hohenstaufen inheritance to become, for nearly six hundred years, the garment in which Holy Roman Emperors were crowned.It survived the dissolution of the Empire in 1806, a forced move to Nazi Nuremberg in 1938, and returned to Vienna's Imperial Treasury in 1946, where it remains on permanent display. It is one of the best-preserved large medieval textiles in existence and one of the clearest surviving objects to record the working relationship between Roger II's Latin Christian court and the Muslim artisans who staffed it. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1133/34** Roger II of Sicily `[documented]` (origin) Made in the royal workshop in Palermo, per the mantle's own Kufic inscription, dated Hijri 528 (1133-4 CE). - **1133/34-1194** The Sicilian royal treasury, Palermo (Roger II and his Hauteville successors) `[documented]` (custody) Kept as crown property through Roger II's reign and those of William I, William II and Tancred. Carla Vernon has argued, on the basis of the ceremonies Roger conducted for his sons' investitures in 1134-5, that the mantle was made and used for that specific ceremonial purpose; this specific ceremonial use is argued, not documented by a direct record. - **1194** Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, in right of his wife Constance (Roger II's daughter) `[documented]` (conquest) Henry VI, married to Constance since 27 January 1186, invaded Sicily after the Hauteville male line ended with Tancred's death, entered Palermo on 20 November 1194 and was crowned king of Sicily there on Christmas Day. Their son, the future Frederick II, was born the next day, 26 December 1194, at Iesi. - **1194-1246** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) The mantle's specific custody in this period is not documented in the sources consulted for this record. A widely repeated but only tertiary-sourced account holds that Sicilian regalia were carried to Trifels Castle in Germany around 1194; the mantle is not securely attested in writing until a Trifels inventory of 1246. This gap is recorded as a gap. - **1246-14th century** Holy Roman imperial regalia, Trifels Castle then Karlstejn Castle (Prague) under Charles IV, then Hersfeld Abbey `[documented]` (custody) Sourced to a tertiary account (Wikipedia) and flagged for replacement with a primary chronicle or the KHM's own institutional history where one can be obtained. - **1423-1796** Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, kept at the Church of the Holy Spirit (Heilig-Geist-Spital) `[documented]` (custody) Displayed annually to the public at the Heiltumsweisung. This was the mantle's longest continuous single-location custody. In 1520, ahead of Charles V's Aachen coronation, the mantle was relined, reportedly at a Nuremberg convent of Poor Clares. - **1796-1800** In transit: Regensburg, then Vienna `[documented]` (evacuation) Moved from Nuremberg to Regensburg in 1796 ahead of advancing French Revolutionary forces, then on to Vienna by 1800, where the Nuremberg regalia (including this mantle) were reunited with the separately evacuated Aachen regalia. - **1800-1938** Imperial, then Austrian state, treasury, Vienna `[documented]` (state succession) The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 when Francis II renounced the title; the regalia, physically in Vienna at that moment, passed to Austria as the empire's legal successor. - **1938-1946** Removed to Nuremberg by Nazi Germany `[documented]` (seizure) Taken from Vienna to Nuremberg in August 1938 on the initiative of Nuremberg mayor Willy Liebel, with Hitler's approval, following the Anschluss. Displayed at Nuremberg's town hall on 5 September 1938 and at subsequent party rallies; the imperial crown was placed in the Historischer Kunstbunker during the war, though this record could not verify the mantle shared that specific location. - **1946-present** Republic of Austria, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer `[documented]` (restitution) Returned to Vienna by the American military government after the Second World War. On continuous public display since. ## Open questions - Was the mantle made for a specific ceremony at all? Vernon (2018) argues it was made for the investiture of Roger II's sons around 1134-5; Bauer (2006) concluded there was no ceremony and it was made purely for the pleasure of the imagery. Both are published, specialist positions and they contradict each other directly. - Did Frederick II personally wear this exact mantle at his imperial coronation in Rome in 1220, or a different Sicilian-workshop garment? At least one source claims the latter; this record could not verify the claim to its own standard and records the question as open rather than resolved. - What did the mantle weigh? Published figures range from about 11 kg to about 50 kg, a difference too large to be rounding, and no source consulted here reconciles the two figures or explains the method behind either. - Where and in whose custody was the mantle between the fall of Norman Sicily in 1194 and its first secure documentary appearance, in a 1246 inventory at Trifels Castle? No source consulted here documents this half-century. - Who actually embroidered it? The Islamic calendar in the inscription implies Muslim craftsmen; Oleg Grabar's specific claim that they were women is unsupported and not accepted here. No names or workshop personnel records survive. - Was the mantle among the objects Henry VI's forces are generally said to have taken from the Sicilian royal treasury after the 1194 conquest, or did it reach the Hohenstaufen court by some other, undocumented route? The general seizure of Sicily's treasury is documented; this specific object's presence in it is not. - Did the mantle share the Historischer Kunstbunker vault beneath Nuremberg Castle with the imperial crown during the Second World War, or was it stored elsewhere in the city between 1938 and 1945? Sources consulted here document the crown's wartime location but not the mantle's specifically. ## Sources - [1] Carla Vernon, 'Dressing for Succession in Norman Italy: The Mantle of King Roger II', Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean (2018). Peer-reviewed article; author's accepted manuscript consulted. - [2] Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, official object database, 'Der Kroenungsmantel', inventory WS XIII 14. - [3] Textile Research Centre Leiden, 'Mantle of Roger II of Sicily'. - [4] FUNCI (Fundacion de Cultura Islamica), 'The mantle of Roger II: the legacy of a multicultural society'. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Coronation cloak'. Tertiary source, used for the post-1194 custody chain (Trifels, Karlstejn, Hersfeld, Nuremberg, 1796-1800 evacuation, 1938 and 1946 moves) where no primary or academic account could be located. Flagged for replacement with the KHM's own published institutional history and/or a primary chronicle. - [6] Wikipedia, 'Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor'. Tertiary source, used for the dates of Henry VI's marriage to Constance and his 1194 conquest of Sicily. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Constance I of Sicily'. Tertiary source, used for Constance's parentage, marriage date and the birth of Frederick II. - [8] Wikimedia Commons, File:Coronation Mantle of the Holy Roman Empire.jpg, extmetadata (licence and photographer verification, checked via the Commons API on 2026-08-27). - [9] Wikimedia Commons, File:Kroenungsmantel HRR detail.jpg, extmetadata. - [10] Wikimedia Commons, File:Kroenungsmantel.JPG, extmetadata. - [11] Wikimedia Commons, File:Wien Hofburg Schatzkammer Ornat 1.JPG, extmetadata. - [12] Wikimedia Commons, File:Unknown artist - Christ Crowning Roger II - WGA16269.jpg, extmetadata (Web Gallery of Art source, PD-old). --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.