Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Mantele

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MANTE'LE, MANTI'LE, and MANTE'LIUM (χειρόμακτρον, ἐκμαγεῖον). Originally, a napkin or towel for the mouth and hands at meals, in which sense it would be synonymous, or nearly so, with MAPPA; but at a later period, when it became customary to lay a cloth over the dinner table, the same name was also used to designate a table-cloth. In other respects, it may be collected from the passages cited below, that the mantele was of a larger, rougher, and coarser description than the mappa, and that it was furnished by the host to his guests; a single one, perhaps, serving for all of them; whereas it was the custom for each individual to bring his own mappa with him. Varro, L. L. vi. 85. Serv. ad Virg. Georg. iv. 377. Mart. xii. 29. 12. xiv. 138. Isidor. Orig. xix. 26. 6.