Rome is no stranger to pageantry. Processions, papal Masses, and the gilded choreography of baroque liturgy have long stitched the Eternal City into a living tapestry of the sacred and sublime. But this summer, at the base of Castel Sant’Angelo and under the gaze of Bernini’s angels, it was not the Vatican but the fashion house of Dolce & Gabbana that seized the stage. On the Ponte Sant’Angelo—a historic pilgrim route to St Peter’s—designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana unveiled an opening sequence so rich in liturgical drama that, at a glance, it might have been mistaken for the entry rite of a Pontifical High Mass.