Eventually, it became a grand spectacle focused on the coronation, a 6-hour long ceremony in which the Pope was adorned with the Papal Tiara or triregnum (triple crown) to symbolize the 3-fold role of all Christians. This would be accompanied by an oath and solemn high mass with the Pope being carried on the sedia gestatoria or a papal throne on a litter, escorted by footmen carrying large Byzantine fans, a canopy to shade him and under the watchful and colorful protection of the Swiss, Noble and Palatine Guards. The Master of Ceremonies would walk in front of the procession burning a piece of flax and chanting "Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world" and, "thou shalt never see the years of Peter", a reminder that no pontiff has ever reigned longer than the original pope, St Peter the Apostle.
For many centuries though, the occasion did not end with the coronation. Another procession accompanied the Pope to take possession of the Lateran Palace. There were cardinals, papal courtiers mounted on white mules from the Pope's stable, the Roman nobility, the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance on a white horse covered by a golden canopy, the members of the curia, the Roman senators, and the Pope himself mounted on a white stallion, shaded by a silk canopy, with the senior kings of Christendom walking humbly beside him in an illustration of the supremacy of spiritual over temporal authority. When he was present, the Holy Roman Emperor, as the "first knight" of Christendom would hold the Pope's stirrup as he mounted and dismounted in a traditional show of homage to a feudal lord.
Eventually, the grand mounted procession to the Lateran Palace stopped taking place, a fate sealed by the conquest of the city of Rome by the Piedmontese in 1870 and the Pope being forced to confine himself to the Vatican. However, the coronation continued to be held and the procession through St Peter's square returned with the enthronement of Pope Pius XI who was determined to normalize relations with Italy and end the self-imposed exile of the Popes in the Vatican.
Once the Papacy gave up all hope of restoring the Papal States, many began to view the monarchial trappings of the Pope (incorrectly) as superfluous, forgetting that it was always spiritual rather than temporal power which these symbols honored and glorified. The last coronation was held for Pope Paul VI who made no further use of his special, very simple, tiara and even that he surrendered in a dramatic gesture at the end of the Second Vatican Council. He also cut back heavily on other papal trappings, downsizing the curia, household and disbanding the Noble and Palatine Guards. However, he left no specific instructions concerning the tiara or coronations, leaving his successors free to choose whether or not to carry on the tradition. His successor, Pope John Paul I, chose not to have a coronation and instead replaced it with a simpler ceremony in which he received the standard metropolitan archbishop's pallium as the symbol of his assuming the throne. John Paul I was also the last to be carried on the papal throne, and did so only because it was the only way he could be easily seen above the crowds. Pope John Paul II followed in his footsteps, leaving out the sedia gestatoria as well in exchange for the more modern so-called "pope-mobile" to ride through the crowds.
A somewhat more elaborate ceremony was held for the current pontiff, Benedict XVI, who started at the tomb of St Peter, walked on foot into the square for the inaugural mass where he received a special, and more traditional papal pallium along with the Fisherman's Ring to mark his official enthronement to the See of Peter.
