Death of Pius IX

A graphic, described in the collection of the Paris Carnavalet Museum as a photograph on albumen paper, depicting the ceremony of officially declaring the death of the Holy Father Pius IX. We see the body of the deceased pope on a bed surrounded by a large group of clergy of various ranks. One of the members of the anti-camera seems to cover the face of the deceased with a white veil again, after Cardinal Pecci, who was standing next to him and acting as the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, called the deceased by name three times and struck his forehead with a small silver hammer the same number of times, then declaring the death of the Holy Father with the words Vere Papa mortuus est (The Pope is truly dead). We do not know whether this was actually how the rite was performed, as sources suggest that the custom of invoking the deceased pope three times (and not necessarily by his baptismal name) had disappeared by the second half of the 17th century, but it may have been the last time a hammer was used to strike, more or less symbolically, the papal forehead – the testimony of an eyewitness to the death of Pius IX’s successor, Leo XIII, clearly states that this gesture was not performed.