Pope Benedict XVI sports wide-brimmed red hat at Vatican audience

(07 Sep. 2006) : Shielding himself against hot weather, Pope Benedict sported a wide-brimmed red hat at the General Audience as he saluted thousands of pilgrims, while standing in a car driving him across the sun-drenched St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday. It was the first time the 79-year-old German pontiff wore a red hat known in Italian as ‘saturno’, because it vaguely resembles the ringed planet Saturn. Last December, to keep warm against the bitter cold, Pope Benedict wore a red velvet cap, trimmed with white fur. That hat, known as a "camauro," was commonly worn by popes in the medieval period to keep their heads warm on cold days and it featured on many paintings at the time. Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963, often used a saturno and John Paul II, who died last year, wore one occasionally during trips to hot countries.