One of the most beautiful as well as one of the most rare objects in the South Kensington collection is part of the handle of an ecclesiastical fan, or flabellum. It is, probably, one half of a handle; and another half, so nearly alike that it is a question whether it does or does not belong to the same handle, is in the British museum. The fan is still used in the Catholic Church in the east, where the purpose and benefit of it in order to keep off flies from the sacred vessels, or on account of the heat, are obvious. But in the west, except perhaps for part of the year in Italy, the fan was a kind of fashion and, having no symbolism, an unmeaning introduction from the oriental rite. The various churches of France and England had dropped the use of it before the sixteenth century; but we have plenty of evidence that the fan was commonly adopted in the thirteenth and the twelfth. Illuminations in two of the manuscripts in the public library at Rouen are very clear in this matter. One represents the deacon raising the flabellum, a circular fan with a long handle, over the head of the priest standing at the altar. In the other, the deacon is in the act of waving the fan, holding it by a short handle, over the head of a bishop who is elevating the Host. A very curious flabellum, supposed to be of the ninth century, is described by Du Sommerard; it had long been preserved in the abbey of Tournus, south of Chalons, and was said to be in the possession of M. Carraud about twenty years ago. The fan of queen Theodolinda, of purple vellum with ivory handle, given by her to the cathedral of Monza is still preserved there. Other examples are, perhaps, still existing; two or three are mentioned by writers of the last century.