July 28, 1982

The first cheers of the current showing season echoed at the Jacquemart-Andre museum this morning when Emanuel Ungaro introduced his fall and winter fashion collection and seemingly could do no wrong. The enthusiastic audience included such people as Marie-Helene de Rothschild and the Americans Lynn Wyatt and Mildred Hilson, who have watched the designer's star rise in the last few years. The rounds of applause began with his first styles, suits with a mannish but soft look in different shades of gray. Black and white knitted tunics over short skirts and knee-baring dresses in the same graphic patterns brought another burst of applause; so did the short bubble skirts for evening in black velvet with lacy camisole tops. In fact, as varied as the designer's styles were, each segment obviously was appreciated, the evening clothes as well as the daytime numbers, the long as well as the short. Success in fashion tends to beget success. Knowing that last season's styles worked for them, Ungaro fans trusted his next step.

The apparent suicide last month of an Italian financier known as ''God's banker,'' who was found hanged beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge, has added to the mystery of a major Italian financial scandal in which the Vatican appears heavily involved. The cost to the Roman Catholic Church could amount to several hundred million dollars. The scandal centers on some $1.4 billion in unsecured loans made in Latin America by Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's largest privately owned banking group, and endorsed by the Vatican bank. It is sending shock waves through the world of international finance and raising questions about current efforts to regulate the foreign operations of multinational banks. Unusual Outside Inquiry It has also strained Italy's relations with the Vatican, an autonomous governing unit in Rome. Under pressure from the Italian Government and concerned church leaders, Pope John Paul II has ordered an unusual outside investigation into the Vatican's finances by three Roman Catholic lay bankers. But the Italian Government wants the Vatican to accept a measure of financial responsibility for Ambrosiano's expected losses.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Farrar Capon is an Episcopal priest, author and food writer whose latest book is ''Between Noon and Three'' (Harper & Row). By ROBERT FARRAR CAPON IT is the ultimate kitchen gadget. It serves as a juicer for lemons, oranges and grapefruit and as a combination seed-remover and pulp-crusher for tomatoes. It functions as a bowl scraper, an egg separator and a remover of unwelcome particles - the stray bit of eggshell, the odd grain of black rice - from mixing bowl or saucepan. It is a thermometer capable of gauging temperatures up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a measuring device for dry ingredients in amounts from one tablespoon down to one-eighth teaspoon or less and for whatever liquids may be called for in the cooking of grains and stocks. It can be used as tongs for removing hot cup custards from the oven, as a mixer of water into pastry dough and as a kneader of bread.

''This was done in protest against our government's permitting the Soviets to occupy a residence in Glen Cove, tax free, and turning it against our national interests.'' - Mayor Alan M. Parente of Glen Cove, L.I., on the city's banning Soviet diplomats from its recreation sites. (A1:4.)

Prescott Bush Jr., stunning both his supporters and his opponents, abruptly withdrew today from the race against Lowell P. Weicker Jr. for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate. Mr. Bush, the brother of the Vice President, said he believed he could have beaten Mr. Weicker, the two-term incumbent, in a Republican primary election on Sept. 7. But in diverting money and effort to win the primary, he said, he would risk losing the Senate seat in the November general election to Representative Toby Moffett, the Democratic candidate. To win the primary and lose the general election, Mr. Bush said, ''would be a hollow situation.'' Review Changed His Mind Mr. Bush said that he had awakened this morning prepared to run in a primary but that a review of what he called ''the logistics of the whole thing'' persuaded him to withdraw in the interest of party unity.