When the pope is dressed in the pontifical costume he receives on his finger a new Fisherman’s ring, which he immediately removes and hands to one of the masters of ceremonies to have engraved upon it the name which he has assumed. The popes have three special rings for their use. The first is generally a rather plain gold one with an intaglio or a cameo ornament; this is called the papal ring. The second one, called the pontifical ring, because used only when the pope pontificates or officiates at grand ceremonies, is an exceedingly precious one. The one worn on these occasions by Pius IX., and which his successor will doubtless also use, was made during the reign of Pius VII., whose name is cut on the inside. It is of the purest gold, of remarkably fine workmanship, set with a very large oblong diamond. It cost thirty thousand francs (about $6,000), and has a contrivance on the inside by which it can be made larger or smaller to fit the wearer’s finger. (Barraud, _Des Bagues à toutes les Époques_. Paris, 1864.) The Fisherman’s ring, which is so called because it has a figure of St. Peter in a bark throwing his net into the sea (Matthew iv. 18, 19), is a plain gold ring with an oval face, bearing the name of the reigning pope engraved around and above the figure of the apostle, thus: _Leo XIII., Pont. Max_. On the inside are cut the names of the engraver and of the major-domo. The ring weighs an ounce and a half. It is the official seal of the popes, but, although the first among the rings, it is only the second in the class of seals, since it serves as the privy seal or papal signet for apostolic briefs and matters of lesser consequence, whereas the great seal of the Holy See is used to stamp the heads of SS. Peter and Paul in lead, and sometimes, but rarely, in gold, on papal bulls. This ring was at first a private and not an official one, as we learn from a letter written at Perugia on March 7, 1265, by Clement IV. to his nephew Peter Le Gros, in which he says that he writes to him and to his other relatives, not _sub bulla, sed sub piscatoris sigillo, quo Romani Pontifices in suis secretis utuntur_. From this it would appear that such a ring was already in well-known use, but it cannot be determined at what period it was introduced, or precisely when it became official, although it is certain that it was given this character in the fifteenth century; but another hundred years passed before it became customary to mention its use in every document on which the seal was impressed by the now familiar expression, “Given under the Fisherman’s ring,” which is first met with in the manner of a curial formula in a brief given by Nicholas V. on the 15th of April, 1448: _Datum Romæ, apud Sanctum Petrum, sub annulo Piscatoris, die xv. Aprilis, MCCCCXLVIII., pontificatus nostri II._[36]