CONCLAVE, the place in which the cardinals of the Romish church meet, and are shut up, in order to the election of a pope.
The concave is a range of small cells, ten feet square, made of wainscot: these are numbered, and drawn for by lot. They stand in a line along the galleries and hall of the Vatican, with a small space between each. Every cell has the arms of the cardinal over it. The concave is not fixed to any one determinate place, for the constitutions of the church allow the cardinals to make choice of such a place for the concave as they think most convenient; yet it is generally held in the Vatican.
The concave is very strictly guarded by troops: neither the cardinals, nor any person shut up in the concave, are spoke to, but at the hours allowed of, and then in Italian or Latin; even the provisions for the concave are examined, that no letters be conveyed by that means from the ministers of foreign powers, or other persons who may have an interest in the election of the pontiff.