What does Pietas mean? A Roman virtue, and ours

Pietas is a Latin word, and for the Romans it was one of the highest virtues. It meant dutiful devotion: the reverence owed to the gods, to one's family and to one's country, and the willingness to act on it when it was inconvenient.

The model of pietas

The clearest picture of it is in Virgil's Aeneid. The hero Aeneas is called "pius Aeneas" so often that the epithet is almost his second name. As Troy burns, he carries his aged father Anchises on his back out of the city, leads his young son by the hand, and takes the household gods with him. Duty to the past, the future and the divine, all at once, and all of it carried.

From pietas to piety, pity and Pietà

The word came into English twice. As "piety", it kept the sense of devotion. As "pity", it carried the idea of tenderness towards those we owe something to. In Italian it became pietà, the name given to images of Mary holding the body of her son, such as Michelangelo's marble Pietà in St Peter's Basilica, carved in the late 1490s.

Why it is the name on the label

It is the word we chose for the label because it describes faith as something done, not displayed: devotion that is dutiful, steady and a little unfashionable. That is also the idea behind the philosophy of the pieces, which are made to be worn for a long time and to speak quietly.

You will find the word itself on The Christogram Hat and The Quis ut Deus Tee.