Bal'dachin (Ital. baldacchino), a canopy of the form of a tent or umbrella, made of costly materials and richly adorned, which is either supported on pillars, or fastened to the roof over a throne or couch, or over a pulpit, an altar, or other sacred object. One of the most celebrated is the baldachin in the church of St Peter's in Rome, cast in bronze by Bernini, which is supported on four large twisted columns. From the days of Constantine, altars were often overshadowed by canopies called ciboria, from their resemblance to the bowl of a cup; and the sacrament was placed in a vessel suspended by a cord from the interior of this cupola. The proposal to erect a baldachin in
St Barnabas Church, Pimlico, gave rise to litigation, which ended in a decision (15th December 1873) against the legality of such a structure in an Anglican church. Baldachin is also the name given to a kind of umbrella of a square form, supported on four poles, borne over the priest who carries the Host. The name, as well as the thing itself, comes from the East, where a baldachin was borne as a symbol of their rank over the heads of the great. Such canopies were often sent as presents from eastern princes to those in the West; as, for example, from the Calif Haroun-al-Raschid to Charlemagne. During the Crusades, and the consequent trade with the East, they became well known to the Italians, and baldachin is merely a corruption of Baaldak, the name by which Bagdad was then known to Europe.