Catafalque

A catafalque is a raised bier, box, or similar platform, often movable, that is used to support the casket, coffin, or body of the deceased during a Christian funeral or memorial service. Following a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, a catafalque may be used to stand in place of the body at the absolution of the dead or used during Masses of the Dead and All Souls' Day.

According to Peter Stanford the term originates from the Italian catafalco, which means scaffolding. However, the Oxford English Dictionary says the word is "[o]f unknown derivation; even the original form is uncertain; French pointing to -fald- or -falt-, Italian to -falc-, Spanish to -fals." The most notable Italian catafalque was the one designed for Michelangelo by his fellow artists in 1564. An elaborate and highly decorated roofed surround for a catafalque, common for grand funerals of the Baroque era, may be called a castrum doloris.

Large processions have followed the catafalques of Popes. In 1590 the households of the cardinals carried the catafalque of Pope Sixtus V. The bier, decorated with gold cloth, was followed by "confraternities, religious orders, students of seminaries and colleges, orphans and mendicants". In 1963 a million people filed past the catafalque of Pope John XXIII, which had been carried in procession to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

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