One of the popular design motifs found in vestment design (not to mention other areas of ecclesiastical art and architecture) is that which shows vegetal motifs in scrolling, winding patterns (called "volutes"). Often these designs include acanthus leaves and flowers. This design was especially popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though we can also find them in the seventeenth century, the twentieth and even in our own day and age thanks to traditionally oriented vestment ateliers). But the 'hey day' of this usage was certainly the eighteenth through nineteenth centuries, so much so that many likely identify these designs as being from those periods; as something 'baroque' in nature.
If you're not familiar with the type of design of which I speak, here are two classic examples coming out of vestment work done in the eighteenth century:
Of course this is only one type, but it is certainly one of the most iconic. We can see to each side of the central orphrey the winding, swirling volutes with their acanthus leaves that terminate in flowers or other vegetal designs:
In actuality this design motif finds its origins in the classical Roman (and Greek) world. If you look throughout the art and architecture of the Greco-Roman world, one will find these same sorts of decorative elements employed in their own art and architecture.
For example, if you look at decorative Roman frescoes, as in the case of Nero's Domus Aurea dating to the first century A.D, one will see these:
Another good example is the Ara Pacis Augustae which dates to the time of the Emperor Augustus. It was commissioned by the Roman Senate to honour Augustus' "Pax Romana" and was constructed between the years 13 to 9 B.C.
If you look closely at the decorative elements found on the structure, one will see these vegetal decorations coming in the form of swirling volutes that terminate in flowers and acanthus leaves:
If we now turn back to our two eighteenth century chasubles as a point of comparison, the Roman 'genealogy' of this design motif should be more than self-evident.
So it is then that these designs, far from simply being 'baroque' (or even Renaissance) tastes, are actually yet another instantiation of 'Romanitas' in Catholic liturgical art.
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