In a previous article on the subject, we covered off the history of pontifical sandals. Today I wished to share just a few images of some of the sandals worn by Pope John XXIII, taken from the excellent book, Il Papa e le sue Vesti. Nainfa, in his standard English language treatment of the subject of pontifical dress, Costumes of Prelates of the Catholic Church According to Roman Etiquette, notes that the privilege of sandals embroidered in either silver or gold is reserved to the Pope and Cardinals. Likewise, the use of gold tassels on the ends of the ribbons or strings used to tie the sandals are likewise reserved to senior classes of clergy. One other interesting point that Nainfa raises is that the use of gold embroidered crosses on sandals, which you will see in the papal examples below, is something that was a particular privilege of the Roman Pontiff (though one honoured as much in the breach as in the observance).
With those details in mind, here are three examples of papal sandals, coming in the liturgical colours of green, red and white -- missing here is an example of violet and as a point of record, there were no sandals (or buskins for that matter) in the liturgical colour black.
