Sedia gestatoria an elaborate variation on the sedan chair. Two large fans ("flabella") made of white ostrich feathers —a relic of the ancient liturgical use of the "flabellum", mentioned in the "Constitutiones Apostolicae"— were carried at either side of the "sedia gestatoria". The ceremonial throne was mainly used to carry popes to and from papal ceremonies in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and St. Peter's Basilica. The "sedia" was used as part of papal ceremony for nearly a millennium. Its origins are sometimes thought to date back to the Byzantine Empire where Byzantine emperors were carried along in a similar manner,
Ekaterina Sedia currently teaches plant ecology and botany at Stockton College and lives with her husband Christopher Sedia and their cats. In her spare time, she blogs about fashion, food, cats, books, television, and feminism. Ekaterina Sedia attended Moscow State University. She then moved to Boston and worked at MIT’s department of brain and cognitive sciences as a research assistant. After that she moved to New Jersey and went to graduate school at Rutgers University-Camden, which is where she got her degree in ecology and evolution in 2001. Today she works at Stockton University teaching plant ecology and evolution. In this story