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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in August-October 2011. See copyright conditions at end.
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Aug
19/08/2011 "The most damning evidence against the map was offered in 1974 by Walter C. McCrone, a Chicago microscopist and consultant. Retained by Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library to examine the Vinland Map, Dr. McCrone removed 29 microscopic particles of velum and ink from the map and subjected them to microscopic evaluation and X-ray analysis. Dr. McCrone concluded that all the ink particles consisted largely of titanium dioxide, a white pigment that was invented in 1917. He declared unequivocally, therefore, that the Vinland Map was a fake. That finding has now been challenged by physicists. Thomas A. Cahill, director of the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory at the Davis campus, and his associates have used a powerful cyclotron to fire a penetrating beam of protons through the Vinland Map, and have concluded from their experiment that the ink contains only trace amounts of titanium, amounts consistent with a genuine medieval document. `In the light of these results, the prior interpretation that the map has been shown to be a 20th-century forgery must be re-evaluated,' they reported in the journal Analytical Chemistry. ... Stung by the challenge to his work, Dr. McCrone sent an angry letter to Dr. Cahill, declaring it `the first shot in a declaration of war.' ... In an interview, Dr. McCrone, who has also branded as fraudulent the religious relic known as the Shroud of Turin, said, `There's no question in my mind that I'm right.' He said that those who made the map `did a fantastic job, but their work was not perfect.' `The ink that has peeled away from the map does not perfectly match the yellowish stains underneath it,' he said. `The clincher is the presence of titanium in those stains on the parchment. `I'm at a loss to explain the thousand-fold difference between Cahill's results and ours. I would like to think that the difference results from an honest error on his part.' ... At Davis, Dr. Cahill asserted with equal assurance that Dr. McCrone's result was mistaken. `Obviously,' Dr. Cahill said, `we don't claim that the Vinland Map is authentic. All we can say is that McCrone's challenge to its authenticity, based on the finding of titanium in the ink, is completely mistaken. We have applied our technique successfully to hundreds of antique books and documents, and since we need not destroy even the tiniest part of what we analyze, we carry out many analyses on each sample. McCrone attempted to extrapolate from too small and too unrepresentative a sample.'' (Browne, M.W., "Map May be from Vikings After All," The New York Times, May 10, 1987). 10/08/2011 "The ink on the Vinland map consists of two layers, one of which is a yellow-brown line formed of ingredients that were absorbed into the parchment, and another consisting of the spontaneously formed surface remains of nonabsorbable black particles. In medieval manuscripts a similar characteristic is common and well-known and requires no special explanation. [Painter, G.D., "The Vinland Map and the Tarter Relation," Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1995]" (Antonacci, M., "The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.259). 10/08/2011 "Dr. McCrone examined twenty-nine ink particles that his staff removed from the map and found that all of the yellow-brown particles largely consisted of a mineral commonly known as anatase. In fact, he found they contained `up to 50 percent' anatase. [McCrone, W.C., "Chemical Analytical Study of the Vinland Map. Report to Yale University Library," New Haven CT, 1974, p.4] Anatase is a crystalline form of titanium dioxide that is rare in nature and was not commercially produced until 1920. Dr. McCrone further found that the black particles in the ink did not contain anatase. Dr. McCrone stressed that the anatase on the map was precipitated rather than a ground material and stated `the presence of anatase as a precipitated pigment was impossible before about 1920.' [McCrone, W.C., "Authenticity of Medieval Document Tested by Small Particle Analysis," Analytical Chemistry, 48, 1976, 676A-679A] He proclaimed that the possibility of the Vinland Map being authentic was analogous to Admiral Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar being a hovercraft. Dr. McCrone asserted that a forger had used a yellow-brown ink to give the map an antique appearance and then applied a black line down the middle of the yellow lines. This alone is not a proper basis for concluding that the ink was modern. Anatase produced from titanium in the medieval formula for ink would be identical to that of modern anatase since the processes by which they are formed are chemically identical. Both would be in the precipitated form. [Painter, G.D., "The Vinland Map and the Tarter Relation," Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1995]." (Antonacci, M., "The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.259). 10/08/2011 "However, a proper basis for distinguishing between modern anatase and that from medieval times would be to measure the amount of contaminants in the ink. Dr. McCrone's own analysis reveals the presence of a variety of inorganic elements on the map. In some cases these elements are present at levels comparable to or exceeding those of titanium, together with organic carbon and various other elements in the ink, for a total of sixteen different elements. [McCrone, W.C., "Chemical Analytical Study of the Vinland Map. Report to Yale University Library," New Haven CT, 1974]. Dr. George Painter, a retired scholar at the British Museum, states `such massive impurities are inconceivable in the chemically pure modern titanium dioxide pigment preparations. They are, on the contrary, decisive for a medieval ink, of an unmodern, unpurified and grossly contaminated composition retained from the natural constituents of its mineral sources.' [Painter, G.D., "The Vinland Map and the Tarter Relation," Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1995] 10/08/2011 "For some unknown reason, Dr. McCrone completely ignored the significance of these sixteen contaminants in his analysis of whether the ink was medieval or modern in origin." (Antonacci, M., "The Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.259). 25/08/2011 "One famous object that has been radiocarbon dated is the Shroud of Turin - said by some to be the cloth in which Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion. These tests, carried out in the late 1980s, indicated the cloth was only around 700 years old. Then further tests were done. These proved that only the bacteria and mould on the cloth were around 700 years old. The mystery continues. Written records confirm the cloth did exist in 1357." (Easton, M., et al., "SOSE Alive 1: Studies of Society and Environment," John Wiley and Sons: Milton QLD, Australia, 2003, p.15). 25/08/2011 "The C-14) test performed at the Arizona AMS clearly showed a wide discrepancy, on the average of 550) years between the linen and the bird's body. Microscope examination showed the presence of a bioplastic coating not only on the bird's and mummy's wrappings, but also on the Shroud, a sample of which Dr. Garza- Valdes studied in Turin. In his own words, `As soon as I looked at a segment in the microscope, I knew it was heavily contaminated. I knew that what had been radiocarbon dated was a mixture of linen and bacteria and bioplastic coating that had grown or. the fibers for centuries.' [Barrett, J., `Science & the shroud,' The Mission, Magazine of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Spring 1996. http://www.uthscsa.edu/mission/spring96/shroud.htm]. Naturally, Dr. Garza-Valdes' discovery, was received with skepticism by some scientists ... However, on December 22, 1998, in a TV interview aired by the learning channel on cable TV, Professor Harry Gove, the co-inventor of the AMS procedure stated unequivocally that, `...bioplastic coating of the linen fibrils could not have been removed even by the most stringent pretreatment cleaning process and would, definitely, skew the real age of the linen.'[ TLC-TV: In Pursuit of the Shroud, Dec. 22, 1998.]" (Konikiewicz, L.W., "Turin Shroud and the Science: Digital Enhancement Provides New Evidence," Panorama Publishing:, Chicago IL, 1999, pp.44-45). Oct [top]
17/10/2011 "According to his [Secondo Pia's] own account, his first thoughts were of relief when he saw the negative image begin to appear under the developer. Seconds later, they were to turn to astonishment, then to a chilling awe. On the glass negative there slowly appeared before him, not a ghost of the shadowy figure visible on the cloth, as he had expected, but instead an unmistakable photographic likeness. The double figures of the Shroud had undergone a dramatic change. Now there was natural light and dark shading, giving relief and depth. Bloodstains, showing white, could realistically be seen to flow from the hands and feet, from the right side, and from all around the crown of the head. Instead of having a masklike, almost grotesque appearance, the man of the Shroud could be seen to be well-proportioned and of impressive build. Most striking of all was the face, incredibly lifelike against the black background. Pia found himself thinking that he was the first man for nearly 1,900 years to gaze on the actual appearance of the body of Christ as he had been laid in the tomb. He had discovered a real photograph, hitherto hidden in the cloth, until it could be revealed by the camera. Throughout history, saints and holy men have claimed to see visions of Jesus. None has ever been able to provide material evidence. In archaeology, ancient tombs have been opened up to reveal, for a fleeting moment, the perfectly preserved remains of someone from the distant past-only for these immediately to crumble to dust. Yet, here, an ordinary man had an amazing `vision' on a photographic plate, a vision capable of endless reproduction. And, above all, a vision seemingly of none other than Jesus Christ." (Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, 1979, pp.27-28). 17/10/2011 "A small, red light shone feebly in [Secondo] Pia's darkroom as he gingerly placed the large glass plates in a solution of oxalate of iron. When the first vague outlines began to appear under the shimmering liquid, the anxiety left Pia's eyes and the frustrations of the past few days began to lift. At least there was something. In the dim, red glare, he held the dripping plate up before his eyes. Clearly visible was the upper part of the altar with the huge frame above it containing the relic. But the brown stain-image seemed somehow different from the way it looked on the cloth itself. It had taken on a molding ... a depth ... a definition. Turning the plate on its side, he gazed at the face. What he saw made his hands tremble and the wet plate slipped, almost dropping to the floor. The face, with eyes closed, had become startlingly real. `Shut up in my darkroom,' Pia wrote later, `all intent on my work, I experienced a very strong emotion when, during the development, I saw for the first time the Holy Face appear on the plate, with such clarity that I was dumbfounded by it.' All his life Pia was to remember that moment, speaking of it as a great glory. An emotional man under his old- fashioned reserve, his eyes were often wet after relating the details to a spellbound audience. More than once in these talks, he spoke of the `trepidation' that had seized him and made him tremble. His first reaction to the unexpected sight in the negative, however, had been mixed with uncertainty. What he saw violated all the laws of photography and he knew it. The stain-image, diffuse and flat on the relic, now stood out like a picture of an actual body, the contours indicated by minute gradations of shading. The face, so bizarre when viewed on the cloth, had become a harmonious, recognizable portrait of a bearded man with long hair. Emotions frozen in death emanated from the features; a vast patience, a noble resignation spoke out of the countenance. Even with the eyes shut, the face was suffused by an expression of majesty, impossible to analyze. All this on his negative plate! Pia knew that in any negative there should be only a rearrangement of lights and shadows and a reversal of position. Light areas should become dark and dark areas light. Left should be right and right, left. The result should have been the usual grotesque caricature of the original that would make good sense only when printed in positive. Instead, here in his negative was a positive portrait as real as any Pia had ever seen. As he carefully lowered the plate into a fixative bath of hyposulphate of soda, he turned over in his mind the possible answers to the phenomenon. Had there been some kind of rare photographic accident, something never before encountered? Perhaps some strange property of lighting or camera could account for it. But Pia was an expert with a confidence born of a quarter-century of experience; he had a sure grasp of photographic principle. He soon rejected any explanation but the obvious one: what showed on the negative was exactly what his camera had seen on the cloth. ... Later that morning, with a positive print made from the negative, he compared the two. There was no longer any doubt. This incredible portrait existed in the stain-image. Although to the naked eye the brownish stains on the relic presented only haphazard outlines, they must, in reality, form a negative, or at least they must possess, in some mysterious way, the qualities of a negative. Thus, when a picture is taken of the cloth, and the negative plate developed, the stain-image is reversed in light values and relative position and shows positive characteristics. Exactly the same process would occur if a picture were taken of a real photographic negative. As dawn crept through the streets of Turin, Pia sat before the negative and its print, occupied with a sudden, stunning thought. No human being could have painted this negative that lies hidden in the stains. ... If it was not painted, not made by human hands, then ... gazing fixedly, Pia felt a numbing certitude that he was looking on the face of Jesus." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.24-27. Emphasis original). 17/10/2011 "A Perfect Photograph We have seen what happened in Secondo Pia's darkroom: the unexpected. A positive picture appeared on the negative plate. Normally, when a person or object is photographed, a negative image is produced on the negative film or plate, because the lights and shades of the person or object are registered by lights, and lights by darks. To get a positive image from the negative film, all the photographer does is `print' the film. In the case of the Shroud, the figures that had been photographed (Figure 4) were already negatives, i.e., the lights and shades of the images on the Shroud were already reversed. Being re-inverted on the negative plate, they appeared there as positive .... Are we to believe that these positive images constitute a real photograph? Certainly! And a perfect photograph, since they are the direct results of perfect negatives, the imprints or images on the Shroud. Can we then say that we have a real photograph of Christ? Yes, one that is derived from an actual negative, a negative twelve feet long-His body imprints on the Shroud-from which can be developed a lifesize photograph of the face and figure, front and back, of that mangled and lifeless body. On this photograph ... The Shroud appears on it as it appeared on the negative plate before Pia's wondering gaze. The meaningless, shadowy, negative imprints of the Shroud have turned positive. And it is a positive figure that emerges from the background of the cloth, a figure distinct and exact in every detail, the face ... endowed with a marvelous expression. The inversion of the negative images is complete in lights, shades, and positions. ... from the Shroud's imprints ... all the darks become light and the lights become dark on the negative plate ... The positions have also been reversed by the photographic process." (Rinaldi, P.M., "I Saw the Holy Shroud," Don Bosco Publications: New Rochelle NY, 1983, pp.18-19. Emphasis original). 17/10/2011 "But as is now well known, the Shroud's truly spectacular feature is revealed when its light values are reversed, light to dark, dark to light, by any camera using black-and-white film. The first man to discover this effect was the Italian councillor and keen amateur photographer Secondo Pia ... who was appointed to take the first ever official photograph of the Shroud during the eight-day exposition of 1898. At around 9.30 p.m. on the evening of 28 May, Pia set up his cumbersome box-like camera before the Shroud as it hung above the cathedral altar, made two long exposures using large glass photographic plates, then hurried back to his dark-room to develop these. As he would subsequently relate, his first thoughts were of relief when he saw pin-sharp negatives of the cathedral altar's ornamentation, which he knew would appear at the edges of his composition, emerge under the developer. But then to his astonishment, as he studied the long oblong that had to be the Shroud itself, there slowly appeared on this not the traces of the ghostly figure that he expected, but instead an unmistakably photographic likeness .... Now, natural light and dark shading gave the impression of relief and depth. Instead of the man seeming to have a rather grotesque and deformed appearance, he could be seen to be well proportioned and of an impressive physique, the apparent bloodstains from his injuries, because red registers dark in black-and-white photography, showing up in a flat white on his naked body. Most striking of all was his face, quite astonishingly dignified and lifelike against the black background. As Pia himself immediately recognised, the clear implication was that the Shroud itself was, in effect, a photographic negative that had been waiting dormant, like a pre- programmed time capsule, for the moment that photography's invention would release its hidden true `positive'. It seemed to him that he had been privileged to become the first man to look upon Jesus's earthly likeness since the days of the apostles." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.17-18). 17/10/2011 "When the exposition drew to a close in May, 1898, a local lawyer named Secondo Pia was allowed to take the first photographs of the Shroud. His equipment failed on the first attempt, but Pia made good exposures on May 28. That night, in Pia's darkroom, one of the abiding secrets of the Shroud was first revealed. Pia removed his glass negative from the developing solution and discovered that the negative which he held in his hands was actually a `positive'--a `print' which was far more lifelike than the image viewed with the naked eye. This meant that the image on the Shroud was a negative. When printed, the dark areas of the image appeared light and the light areas appeared dark, and there was a left-right reversal of details." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, p.56). 17/10/2011 "Secondo Pia's remarkable photographs made the Shroud famous. They also made it an object of serious scientific study for the first time. The pictures revealed the corpse wrapped in the Shroud in excruciating detail. Forensic pathologists and other medical experts who examined the minutely detailed photographs were able to determine much about the sufferings which caused the man's death. For example, scientists could distinguish individual scratch marks within the `scourge wounds' on the dorsal image, and they could determine with a high degree of confidence that the man in the Shroud had been whipped by two men working on opposite sides of his back." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, pp.56-57). 17/10/2011 "The most important scientific implication of Pia's discovery was that the Shroud was not an obvious forgery. Why would a fourteenth-century forger have painted a negative image? Not until the nineteenth century did anyone understand the concept of negativity: an image resembling the original would be created if light was projected onto a light-sensitive paper through a film in which the light-dark values were reversed. It seemed improbable that anyone would have known this in the fourteenth century. It was almost ludicrous to suggest that a painter, depicting Jesus' body as it might have appeared on his burial garment, would have chosen to do so with an artistry and detail that would have not been discovered for more than 500 years, until the invention of a photographic process which his age knew nothing about." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, p.57. Emphasis original). 17/10/2011 "Scientists who considered the implications of Secondo Pia's photographs soon identified a key question: how was the image formed? At the turn of the century, Paul Vignon, a French biologist and artist, conducted a series of experiments to discover the process by which the image came to be printed on the cloth. Vignon's experiments convinced him that the image could not be a painting. He used conventional oil pigments and water colors to paint pictures on pieces of old linen; when he rolled up the cloth, as the Shroud was rolled, the dry pigment cracked and fell off. Vignon also considered the possibility that a very light dye had been diffused into the fibers of the cloth. But such an image would not have been subject to a chemical process over the years which would have reversed the light and dark values-the only plausible way a negative image could have been produced." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI, 1981, p.57). 18/10/2011 "The Photographic Negative Fifty years ago an amateur photographer took the most famous picture ever taken. After much diplomacy, Secondo Pia secured permission to photograph the shroud which had not been exhibited for thirty years. The shroud was under glass and it was exposed at six yards' height, so a scaffolding was erected. In spite of these difficulties the result was surprising. When Pia was developing the plate, he suddenly saw realistic features of a face emerging cm the negative, which he almost let fall in his excitement. Until then the markings on the shroud had been taken as a crude drawing of a human figure. The only detailed inspection undertaken had been that made by the Poor Clares of Chambéry in 1534; but even they misinterpreted the mode of reproduction and failed to see the full implications. But after 1898 a photographic facsimile replaced the inaccurate sketches hitherto prevalent and allowed a leisurely scientific examination of the imprinted figure. And from 1931 the splendid official photographs of Giuseppe Enrie have been available. So for the first time in centuries the shroud can be subjected to accurate investigation." (O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin, 1985, p.46. Emphasis original). 18/10/2011 "But it was Pia's negative of the face which excited world-wide interest. Until then no one had-or could have had-the slightest suspicion that the real features of the Man in the Shroud were hidden in the apparently ugly face depicted and could be extracted therefrom were there available a physical process for reversing light and shade. We are nowadays so accustomed to photography that we may fail to grasp the extraordinary nature of this discovery. It was only in the nineteenth century that the very idea of a `negative' came into existence. The physical method of obtaining a negative, and then a positive therefrom, is of quite recent origin. The blackening effect of light on silver salts was known to the alchemists and further studied in the 18th century by Schulze and Scheele. By contact with paintings on glass, Wedgwood (1805) made shadow-negatives on paper or leather impregnated with a silver salt. Herschel (1871), inventor of the word `photograph,' discovered the fixing properties of sodium thiosulphate, commonly but incorrectly called hyposulphite; this was in 1819 but he did not utilise the result until twenty years later. If permanency is taken as the criterion, the first photographs were produced in 1827 by Niepce (1833); they depended on the action of light in reducing the oil solubility of a preparation of asphalt and lavender oil spread upon a plate of silver or glass. ... Not until this inversion was effected (first in 1898) was it possible to interpret the markings properly, or indeed to locate the mouth or the eyebrows correctly. ... From a comparison between the negatives and the originals we can deduce that no artist would dream of making an unnatural negative for the purpose of subsequently having even a monochrome positive. Before photography was invented, the very idea could not occur to him. And even to-day it is almost impossible to copy any graded negative without spoiling the resultant positive. ... A 14th century painter could not possibly have had the faintest idea of a negative. Even if he had, he lacked the technical means of verifying it. Now why should a forger go to the trouble of concocting impressions which were not discernible for five centuries? Even forgery, being a business, must supply in accordance with demand, it must give customers what they want- not a negative whose existence could not even be suspected for centuries. Meanwhile their devotion had to be content with what was really a caricature." (O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin, 1985, pp.46-48,52. Emphasis original). 22/10/2011 "What is the Shroud of Turin? A linen shroud containing what looks like a photographically negative image of a man with wounds similar to those of the crucified Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament. The shroud was owned for centuries by the House of Savoy, one of Europe's royal families, but for much of the time has been in the custody of the Archdiocese of Turin, Italy. The House of Savoy willed the shroud to the Vatican in 1983." (Dana Clark Felty, "Shrouded in mystery," Savannah Morning News, January 26, 2008). 22/10/2011 "What is the Shroud? The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth stored in a cathedral in Turin, the major city in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. It is in the shape of a large table cloth, approximately 14 ft long and 3.5 ft wide, and down the middle of the cloth, there is a faint, straw-coloured image of the front and the back of a naked man. Since this cloth exists today, it can be, and has been, subjected to numerous scientific investigations. But after decades of study, science has yet to determine how this image got on the cloth. Tradition states that the faint image represents Christ as his lifeless body laid in the tomb following his crucifixion, but alas, there is also no scientific means to test if the image is Christ. On the other hand, science has been able to determine firstly that this image is not the product of an artist, and secondly, that this image is, so far as modern science can tell, a flawless representation of a man who was crucified and buried as Christ was. Historical documents on the Shroud start in 1357 AD, and because this places the Shroud in the Middle Ages during the golden age of religious relics, many skeptics believe that the image on the Shroud was painted in order to be used as a relic to obtain funds for a struggling church. Other experts believe the Shroud to be authentic, and Wilson has provided a reasonable scenario which places the Shroud first into the hands of Jesus' disciples, then found in Turkey where it was used to impart healing, and eventually ending up with the Crusaders prior to the collapse of Constantinople at the hands of the Turks. According to Wilson, the Shroud was cared for by the Knights Templars for several centuries. The Knights Templars was a secret sect composed of knights who were crusaders or the descendants of these crusaders. The appearance of the cloth in Medieval Europe corresponds roughly to the time the Templars were undergoing severe persecution for political reasons, possibly explaining why it appeared at this point in history. ... After being moved around to a number of cities because of various wars, the Shroud came to Turin. ... For any Christian who believes the Gospels are historically accurate, it would be safe to conclude that not only did a burial cloth exist, it must have had some importance; each of the gospels describes the body of Jesus being wrapped in this linen. It is the assumption of many today that the Shroud of Turin is the actual burial cloth or linen that wrapped the body of Christ." (Chiang, R.G., "Science meets Religion: Shroud of Turin," in "Overcoming Prejudice in the Evolution Creation Debate: Developing an integrative approach to Science and Christianity," Doorway Publications: Hamilton ON, Canada, 2004. Emphasis original). 22/10/2011 "What is the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin is a large piece of linen cloth (14 feet 3 inches by 3 feet 7 inches) which is preserved today in a chapel attached to the cathedral in Turin, Italy. It is called the Shroud be cause tradition says that the Body of Christ was wrapped in this cloth at the time of His burial. It is called the Shroud of Turin because since 1578 the Shroud has been preserved in Turin. Historians trace the cloth back to France where in 1389 it was the subject of a controversy between the Canons of the Cathedral at Lirey and the Bishop of Troyes. The Canons claimed that it was the Burial Cloth of Christ, while the Bishop said that the image on the cloth was a painting. .... From May 25th to June 2nd, 1898 the Shroud was displayed publicly in the Cathedral at Turin. Permission was sought to photograph the cloth for the first time ... When permission was granted, Secondo Pia was chosen to take the photograph. ... The resulting photograph was anything but routine. .... The image on the glass plate was not negative, but positive! ... the only possible explanation for the positive image was that the image on the cloth ... was itself a negative image! But how could this be? Photography was less than a hundred years old. This cloth was certainly five hundred years. It existed long before anyone knew what a negative image was. When Pia's discovery was reported in scientific journals, scientists became curious about the origin of this `negative' image which ante-dated photography by several hundred years. In Paris at the Sorbonne University under the direction of Dr. Paul Vignon a group of scientists studied the glass plates provided by Secondo Pia. The group included ... Dr. Yves Delage, a member of the French Academy of Science and, incidentally, a professed agnostic. After an intensive investigation of eighteen months the scientists were convinced of the authenticity of the Shroud, and they believed that they had discovered a process by which the imprints could have been formed (Vignon's vaporograph theory). On April 12, 1902, Delage presented a report to the French Academy of Science. Delage rejected categorically the possibility that the image had been painted. All evidence indicated that the image was actually the imprint of a human corpse. Accepting the Gospels as historical records, Delage the agnostic, went one step further and on purely scientific and circumstantial evidence accepted the identification of the Man of the Shroud as Christ of the Gospels." (Otterbein, A.J., "Introduction," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, pp.3-4). 23/10/2011 "We next ask, what is the Holy Shroud of Turin? It is a piece of very fine, oriental material, fourteen feet in length and about three and a half in width, on which can be traced the figure of a man, very tall and dignified in appearance, with a face of surpassing majesty ... It reveals a double figure, that is, the front and back of the same person. The back shows that he is completely naked, and the back shows also, from head to feet, the traces of a terrible scourging. It is claimed that that Shroud is the Sindon of Our Lord, in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped His body, and that the figure we see on it is that of Our Lord Himself. Assuming for the present that this is true, I will answer the question which will naturally be asked, how came the double figure on the sheet? Our Lord's body was laid on one end of the sheet, and this portion of the sheet took the impression of His back. The sheet, let us remember, is very long, but not wide. Accordingly, it could not be folded across the body width-wise, but instead it was drawn over His head and stretched as far as His feet ...This part of the sheet took the impression of His face and the front of His body. Accordingly, when the sheet is extended to its full length, it shows two figures, front and back, head to head, of the same person ...." (Beecher, P.A., "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin, 1928, pp.17-18). 23/10/2011 "This much however, during an exhibition of art in Turin in 1898, the Shroud was taken out of the silver casket in which it lies folded. The members of the Official Commission invited the cooperation of Signor SECUNDO PIA, a famous photographer of that City. He stretched the Shroud on a wooden frame, and photographed it ... Then the marvellous happened, which remains a scientific mystery to this day; the double figure that is very indistinct and scarcely better than a child's daub on the sheet gave a wonderfully perfect figure on the plate of the camera; and the secret was revealed by photography that the figure on the Shroud itself is not a positive but a negative. ... if we had nothing else, this fact alone would dispose of the painting theory of Canon CHEVALIER and his followers. " (Beecher, P.A., "The Holy Shroud: Reply to the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.," M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin, 1928, pp.18-19. Emphasis original). 23/10/2011 "WHAT IS THE HOLY SHROUD? The Holy Shroud of Turin is a piece of cloth measuring 14'3" by 3'7" which bears an image of a man laid out in death. The Shroud is kept today in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John in Turin, Italy. It is regarded by many millions of people as the genuine burial shroud of Jesus Christ. Its documented existence takes us back over 600 years and there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence to indicate its continuous existence back to the time of Christ 2,000 years ago in Palestine. Since the end of the nineteenth century an enormous amount of scientific investigation has been carried out on the Shroud and on photographs of it whose enigmatic properties have baffled highly acclaimed scientists in many parts of the world." (Morgan, R., "Shroud Guide," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia, 1983, p.7. Emphasis original). 23/10/2011 "The Shroud of Turin has been described as the single most studied artifact in history. Whether this is true or not it is certainly one of the most controversial subjects of all time. To the true believer it is the burial shroud of the crucified Christ, left in his tomb at the time of the Resurrection. ... The Shroud has given rise to its own branch of science, known as sindonology. To the sceptical it is a piece of mediaeval trickery which has been fooling the gullible for the last six hundred years or more. The Shroud itself is an ivory-coloured cloth with a herringbone weave. It measures 14 feet 3 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide. These measurements may seem a little odd. They make far more sense when converted into first-century Jewish cubits. Using a measure of 21.4 inches to the cubit, based on the Assyrian standard, the measurement of the Shroud converts to exactly 8 cubits in length by 2 cubits in width. It was made in a single piece, apart from a strip approximately three and a half inches wide running the entire length of the left-hand side of the Shroud. This strip is attached to the Shroud by a single seam. On the cloth itself is a faint image, almost shadow-like. This shows the back and front of a well-built man, nearly six foot tall, with a beard and long hair, laid out with his hands crossed in front of him. He appears to be dead, and somehow there is a peacefulness and serenity about his features.... There is no visible outline of the image; it melts away into the fabric. It can only be seen clearly from a distance; when viewed from close up it almost seems to disappear. Also apparent on the Shroud are what seem to be bloodstains. There are flows from several points on the upper forehead as well as from the back of the head; flows from the wrists and the feet; and a copious flow from an elliptical-shaped wound on the left side of the body. The Shroud material is disfigured by stains and by fire damage. One night in December 1532 a fire broke out in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambery, in south-eastern France, where the Shroud was then being kept. ... a drop of molten silver fell on to the linen inside the casket, resulting in scorching of all forty-eight folds of the Shroud. This was then doused with water, which resulted in further stains. Almost as if by a miracle the image itself was scarcely touched." (Oxley, M., "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK, 2010, pp.3-4). 23/10/2011 "It is absurd to demand a detailed documentation from Jews and Jewish Christians regarding the presence and handing down of the Holy Shroud in the period before Christianity enjoyed full freedom of expression in the Middle East, and particularly in Jerusalem, which was a troubled, much conquered city right from the beginnings of Christianity. The lack of documentation may be due to three main reactions which would have been provoked by the open showing of the shroud of a man who, from the blood marks and entire imprint, clearly died on the cross: a religious reaction concerning legal impurity, a theological reaction concerning the question of real or only apparent humanity, and a juridical reaction concerning violation of the tomb. This would have led to the immediate destruction of the shroud and severe punishment of those having it in their possession." (Ricci, G., "The Holy Shroud," Center for the Study of the Passion of Christ and the Holy Shroud: Milwaukee WI, 1981, p.xxi. Emphasis original). 26/10/2011 "What is it pilgrims see when, during the seldom recurring expositions of the famous Relic, they flock by the thousand to the Cathedral of Turin? A long strip of yellowish cloth (14 feet 3 inches long and 3 feet 7 inches wide) variedly marked with stains, burns and patches, forms the great centre of attraction for those eager and reverent eyes. .... The spectators perceive two rather vague imprints of a human body in natural size, placed head to head, outlined in the centre of the linen. ... The two dark streaks that run parallel to the sides of the Cloth are the traces left by a fire which nearly destroyed the Relic at Chambéry [France] in 1532. At that time, the Shroud, folded eight times lengthwise and four times crosswise, was kept in a silver chest. When the chest was rescued from the flames, one side had already been partly melted. A corner of the folded Shroud was charred where a piece of the red-hot metal had fallen, and the scorching reproduced itself symmetrically through all the several layers of the Cloth. Other stains were made by water poured on to quench the fire. The mended portions are the work of the Chambéry nuns who used altar linen in repairing the precious Cloth. The burns, patches and water stains, and even the many creases on the Cloth, tend to divert the eye from what should be its great point of attraction: the two shadow-like images in the centre of the Shroud. On the fourteen-foot length of cloth it is not easy for the viewer to grasp and interpret their significance. Photography has made it possible for us to view the Shroud as a whole, at one glance and yet correctly, reducing that long expanse of cloth into small compass. Yet even when seen on photograph these images appear somewhat blurred and formless: they are the imprints of the Body of our Saviour. ... The reader ... I do not expect him to be impressed to any degree from his study of this picture. Perhaps he may even be disappointed. He may have already thought that those shadow-like imprints constitute no portrait of Jesus at all; that it takes no small effort of the imagination to see in those stains the traits of the Crucified One. This is all very true. The images of the Shroud are both meaningless and disappointing. The detail of the face as seen on the Shroud ... is even more disconcerting; it looks unnatural, expressionless, more like a mask than a face. It is certainly not a portrait. ... And rightly so, for on the Shroud the images are shown reversed in light and shade and position from what they are in reality. They are a perfect negative, and they look as meaningless and grotesque as would the picture of any one of us on a negative film. We know this because photography gave us the positive version of the Shroud's mysterious imprints, thus revealing to us the true nature and significance of those stains that make the Turin Shroud the most precious cloth in the world." (Rinaldi, P.M., "The Man in the Shroud," [1972], Futura: London, Revised, 1978, pp.25-27). 27/10/2011 "Before them was a long, narrow piece of cloth that had once been white, but now had the tone of old ivory. It was about fourteen feet in length and less than four feet wide. From one end to the other it presented a bewilderingly mottled appearance: a series of large and small patches, darkened areas, discolorations and brownish stains. The gaze of the onlookers immediately went to the stains: though vague and diffused, they gave an irresistible impression of a human body. On one half the length of the sheet could be dimly seen the front of the body, with head, arms, chest and legs discernible. On the other half, the back of the head and the broad expanse of shoulders tapering down to hips and legs were visible. The figures had no sharp outlines. Yet, somehow, the stains, fading here and darkening there, managed to convey the image of a man. Smears and trickles of a darker hue, like blood, marred the figure in places. The face was a grotesque thing, mask-like and expressionless. Owlish white spots indicated the position of the eyes. The nose was a dark line running down the middle of the face from arched brows, the mouth a small, dark blob beneath which stains seemed to form a beard. Separately, another stain straggled up from the level of the beard, over the head and down the other side of the face. Long hair." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.7-8). 27/10/2011 "The shroud was made of ivory-colored, almost yellow linen, and was disfigured in several distinct ways. Wrinkles zig-zagged the 14˝ -foot length and 3˝-foot width of the cloth whenever it was hung for exposition. Burn marks from a fire in 1532 ran down the cloth's sides. Water marks resembling rough-cut diamonds, made when the sixteenth-century fire was doused, could be seen with the naked eye. Also appearing on the shroud were two softly diffused but distinct impressions of a body. They were difficult to see up close, but at a distance they stood out in subtle brown. It was as though the cloth had been wrapped around a body - not in mummy fashion, but lengthwise - beginning at the heels and proceeding up the back to the base of the skull, then over the head and down the face to the toes. The face was owl-like, almost grotesque. The eyes were open and staring, with what looked like pinholes for pupils. The nose was long and thin-a line in the center of the face. The mouth was a smudge beneath the nostrils. The hair appeared coarse and stringy, and hung almost to the neck in what appeared to be two braids. Between the hair and the sides of the face there was a curious space. The feet appeared to be missing from the frontal image, and the legs were little more than lines tapering from the trunk. But the thighs, knees, and calves could be discerned, and the hands were folded over the loins in repose. The stomach, chest, and arms were easily recognizable on the frontal image, whereas the head, shoulders, and buttocks stood out on the dorsal. The dull red stain of blood was everywhere. Large droplets from under the hairline suggested the entrance points of thornlike instruments. Small lacerations all over the body could easily have been the result of indiscriminate and interminable flogging. Wounds from nails resulted in large seepages on the hands as well as thin trickles on the arms. The gash in the side showed the most bleeding; blood had gathered around the hole, then flowed down the sides of the body and across the small of the back. These were the images Secondo Pia expected to see as he peered into the tray of chemicals and waited for the negative plate to develop. The year was 1898, and he had been commissioned to make the first photographs ever of the shroud. But what he saw as he held the dripping plate up to the red light was something far different. The face was alive with expression; its details were almost portraitlike. The eyes were closed and tranquil as though the figure were asleep. The mouth was full, with mustache above and beard below. The nose was long and prominent, with gradations of shadow down the sides. The hair, strands of which were matted with blood, appeared soft and smooth. What Pia was looking at were positive images, and what he saw on the cloth itself, the photographer concluded, must be negative images. Exactly how these images had been transferred to the shroud he could not say. What was clear was that Jesus had left not only his `photograph' on the shroud but also a visual record of what happened to him in the bloody hours before his death." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, pp.3-4. Emphasis original). 27/10/2011 "The occasion of the Shroud being housed in this new case, immediately prior to the expositions of 1998, also saw the removal ... of a blue satin frame-type surround that had been sewn onto the Shroud in the nineteenth century, and its replacement by a new white cloth. This removal enabled the original cloth's dimensions to be measured rather more precisely than had been possible before, at 437 cm long by 111 cm wide. In describing its most salient features, we shall use terms such as `left', `right', `top' and `bottom' to refer to the mode in which it was displayed in 1998, that is landscape-wise, with the imprint of the front half of the `Christ' body ranged to the left, and the back half imprint ranged to the right ... This has the virtue that it is also the mode in which it has most commonly been displayed since as early as the 1350s ... When the Shroud is viewed in this `landscape' way the two `Christ body' imprints appear somewhat incongruously head to head. Yet, as was deduced by artist-copyists nearly four centuries ago, this is actually very readily explained. Whether the Shroud is authentic or a forgery, the theory behind the imprints' origination is that the `Christ' body was laid on the half of the cloth that now bears the `back' imprint, the other half of the cloth then being brought over the head and down to the feet, thereby creating the `front' imprint. Inevitably the more impressive of these two imprints is the left, or 'front-of-the-body' half, on which can be discerned a ghost-like front-facing face, complete with hair, nose, beard, moustache and eyebrows. The coloration of this and all related so-called `body' imprinting is so subtle and evanescent that it is extremely difficult to describe. `Sepia' was the term that I adopted following my 1973 viewing, but `straw-yellow' was preferred by the STURP scientists of 1978 ... But in any event the body image's prime characteristics are its lack of apparent substance (as from any pigment), also its failure to exhibit optically meaningful contours, and its imperceptible fading into the background colour of the natural cloth itself, without any defined edges. All around the forehead of the face can be discerned overlying trickles in a distinctively redder colour. Although the only logical interpretation of these trickles is as blood stains, their colour under artificial lighting is more magenta than is normally associated with blood which is even a day old, let alone twenty centuries. In room interior daylight ... they can appear more maroon, deepening in places where the trickling of droplets has terminated. In this same colour there is also a large `blood' flow overlying the right-hand side of the figure's chest. More, similar-coloured `blood' trickles down the figure's forearms, one larger, distinctively V -shaped stain at the one visible wrist seemingly indicating the source of this. In the `body' image colour, bony-looking hands are very clearly discernible crossed over the genitals region. And yet more `blood' is apparent at the cloth's far left end, where the figure's feet might be construed to have been. ... When we turn our attention to the right-hand half of the cloth there are several more `blood' trickles in the back-of-the-head area, resembling those earlier noted on the forehead. These trickles overlie a head-shaped `body' image suggestive of long hair, together with what seemed ... to be an unbound pigtail lying in parallel with the spine ... Again in the `body' image coloration, there is the impression of shoulders that became peppered with faint but distinctively regular-size marks, each having a characteristic dumb-bell shape. In the `blood' colour a chain-like complex of rivulets runs across what would appear to be the small of the figure's back, while a scattering of more 'body'-coloured dumb-bells can be discerned on faintly indicated buttocks. Limbs are similarly vaguely indicated in the `body' image colour, the back of the figure's upper or left-hand leg seemingly slightly more strongly imprinted than its partner. At the cloth's far right we can make out the surprisingly well-defined sole of a foot, with its `body' image colour almost completely covered over with heel-to-toe `blood'. From the heel/ankle area a rill of more `blood' seems to have spilled sideways directly onto the cloth, arguably as the figure was laid in it, while a complex of further `bloodstains', as from a second foot, is also evident, though rather less clearly delineated. Yet, although this enigmatic `body and blood' imprint is the Shroud's very raison d'etre ... it is by no means its most conspicuous feature. That most doubtful `honour' must instead go to two lines of brownish marks and add-on patches that each run the length of the cloth transversely, only just beyond the sides of the two head-to-head figure imprints, thereby effectively framing these. These brownish marks are scorches from a fire in December 1532, when the Shroud was being kept in the Savoys' then capital of Chambéry, high in what are now the French Alps. As the cloth lay in an ornate silver casket, secure behind a multi-locked iron grille, the Savoys' Sainte Chapelle burst into flames, leaving no time for the clergy to obtain the keys from the various worthies holding them. Although a hastily summoned blacksmith managed to prise the grille open in the nick of time, the Shroud's casket was found to have melted in the heat. Inside the cloth had been stored away folded up in forty-eight folds, and upon its being opened up a drop of molten silver fell on one corner, causing it to burst into flame, and necessitating a hurried dousing with water. Although the Shroud had not been destroyed, as some rumoured at the time, it was undeniably seriously scarred and blemished with a sorry patchwork of burn- holes, scorchmarks and water-stains." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, 2000, pp.18-22). 27/10/2011 "In November 1973, while I was living in Bristol, England, a call came through from the United States alerting me that for the first time in forty years the Shroud was to be brought out for public gaze from its then normal repository in the Royal Chapel. It was to be shown on Italian television, and there was also to be an unprecedented opportunity for journalists and interested individuals such as myself to view the cloth at first hand. ,,. By lunch-time on 22 November I found myself, with some thirty others, being given a brief preliminary introduction by Turin's then archbishop, Cardinal Michele Pellegrino. The group was escorted up a grand marble staircase of Turin's Royal Palace and into a huge, frescoed hall, the Hall of the Swiss. At the far end of this the Shroud hung upright in a simple oak frame, its fourteen- foot length brilliantly illuminated by high-powered television lights. .... It did not look at all as I had expected. Everything that I knew of the Shroud up to this point - and I thought I knew quite a lot - had been based on black-and-white photographs that, whether they are in positive or negative, make it look a lot darker than it really is ... To see the original's faintness and subtlety was really quite breath-taking. Framed by the burns and patches from the other fire in which the Shroud came perilously close to destruction - a similarly ruinous chapel blaze while it was being kept at Chambéry in 1532 - there was the familiar `body image' that to me was the Shroud's central mystery. If you stood back you could make it out readily enough: a bearded face, a pronounced chest, crossed hands, legs side by side, together with, as one looked up at the back-of-the-body image, a long rope of hair, taut shoulders and buttocks, and soles of the feet. But the image colour was the subtlest yellow sepia, and as you moved in closer to anything like touching distance .. it seemed virtually to disappear like mist. Because of the lack of outline and the minimum contrast to the ivory-coloured background, it became wellnigh impossible to `see' whatever detail you were trying to look at without stepping some distance back again. To me, as a practising life-painter and an enthusiast of art history, it seemed absolutely impossible that any artist-faker could have created an image of this kind, certainly not one of centuries ago. The succeeding day and a half during which I was allowed some eight hours of further direct examination served to reaffirm my conviction, despite all the obvious rational objections, that this cloth simply had to be genuine." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, pp.3-4. Emphasis original). 28/10/2011 "The Shroud of Turin ... is a sheet of linen fourteen feet six inches long by three feet nine inches wide [442.5 cm x 113.7 cm], these dimensions being a broad approximation because of two missing corners. Most of those who have had the opportunity to view it close up describe its general background coloration as ivory. Even so, one of the first surprises on any viewing is just how clean the fabric appears for an object theoretically two thousand years old. ... Another surprise is the Shroud's general state of repair. Any examination in close-up clearly reveals the cloth's tight herringbone weave, and how fundamentally strong it remains, with no sign of disintegration. Yet the texture is not at all coarse in the manner of sailcloth or sacking. Instead, as was possible to determine with a surreptitious touch during the 1973 showing, it has the basic lightness of a modern-day linen bed- sheet. But what principally draws the eye during any direct viewing is the Shroud's famous and all-important double image. Like the subtlest of shadows, cast on the cloth can be seen faint imprints of the back and front of the body of a man with long hair and a beard. He seems to be quite naked, bloodstained in places, and laid out in the attitude of death. To those unfamiliar with the Shroud, the head-to-head arrangement of the two imprints ... can only appear most curious without some explanation of the basic theory behind how they seem to have been formed. First the body the Shroud wrapped was laid on one half of the cloth, thereby creating the back-of- the-body imprint; the remaining half of the cloth was then drawn over the head and down to the feet, creating the front-of-the-body imprint. Given a corpse soaked in sweat and blood, each side of the body thereby acted like some kind of printing plate. Yet another of the surprises arising from viewing the Shroud directly rather than via a photograph is discovering just how pale and subtle the two body imprints appear. First-hand assessments of their colouring range from straw-yellow to sepia, much depending on the prevailing light conditions. Nevertheless there is universal agreement on their most enigmatic property: the closer one tries to examine them, the more they seem to melt like mist." (Wilson, I., "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, 2010, pp.6-7, 311n1). Nov [top]
13/11/2011 "Now it seems to me otiose, if not ridiculous, to spend time arguing (as some leading sindonologists, such as Giulio Ricci or Jose-Luis Carreno Etxeandia, argue) about the identity of the man represented on the Turin Shroud. Whether it is genuine or a fake, the representation is obviously of Jesus Christ. If the figure is a fake, then the craftsman who faked it has represented the body of a man who has been mocked, scourged, executed and pierced in the manner described in the four Gospels - with one significant variant, which we shall discuss later. He has manifestly intended to portray the Jesus of Nazareth who `suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried', and has made an extraordinarily accurate job of it down to the least detail. If, on the other hand, the figure is authentic, it can only be Jesus for three good reasons: first, because it is most unlikely that the shrouds of any other crucified men - mainly slaves, peasants and crooks - would either have been of this quality or have been considered worth preserving; secondly, because of the thousands of victims of crucifixion which history records, only one is known to have suffered both wounds to the head (consonant with a spiky cap being pressed down upon the cranium) and the side (compatible with a deep jab from a Roman lance) as we see represented on the Shroud; and thirdly, because this man - although demonstrably crucified - has not suffered the crurifragium, or breaking of the leg-bones with a heavy mallet, which was an almost invariable concomitant of crucifixion. The Shroud-Man is Jesus Christ or nobody." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud ," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, 1978, pp.23-24). 13/11/2011 "Except for the duration of the Second World War (when it was hidden high up in the Southern Italian Province of Avellino in the crypt of the Abbey of Montevergine ... the Shroud has remained for the last four hundred years at Turin. It was brought there from Chambéry in September 1578 (hence its exposition throughout the month of September 1978 and the date of the publication of this book), ostensibly to shorten the journey of the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, St Charles Borromeo (1538-84), who wished to venerate it, but more probably as part of a political move on the part of its owner, Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy (1528-80), who was planning to transfer his capital from Chambéry to Turin. Since 1694 it has been preserved in a chapel specially built for it between the apse of the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista and the Royal Palace, known as both the Cappella Reale and the Cappella della Santa Sindone. This shrine is the work of the Theatine architect, Guarino Guarini of Modena (1624-83), and was commissioned by Duke Vittorio Amedeo II (1666-1732), the first King of Sardinia. The bold dome of this impressive black marble rotonda is 195 feet high, and soars beyond the top of most internal photographs. The Shroud - when not exposed - is kept rolled up round a pole inside a silvered wooden reliquary behind a grille above the altar. Although jealously guarded and protected by asbestos, it has been the target of pyromania even in this decade: on 1, October 1972 some acrobatic Herostratus climbed over the palace roof, broke into Guarini's chapel through the dome and tried to set fire to Christendom's most precious relic, repeating his gesture twenty days later." (McNair, P., "The Shroud and History: fantasy, fake or fact?," in Jennings, P., ed., "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud ," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, 1978, pp.23-24). 13/11/2011 "Evasively was also the way Cardinal Fossati had answered the Nazis' repeated request, during World War II, to see the shroud. Although they said they wanted to view it for scholarly and devotional purposes, the cardinal had already spirited the shroud from its resting place over the altar in the shroud chapel to a stone fortress overlooking Avellino, 140 miles south of Rome. Built in the twelfth century and accessible only by a dirt road, the building now was the Benedictine monastery of Monte Vergine. When the shroud arrived, it was placed in a wooden box, sealed, and placed under the main altar in the chapel. If the monastery were bombed, the monks could rush it to a cave in the heart of the mountain. In 1946, in gratitude for their preserving the shroud while war raged up and down the country, Cardinal Fossati gave the monks and several invited guests a private showing of the shroud." (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, p.18). 14/11/2011 "Emmanuel Philibert, the Duke of Savoy, brought the Shroud to Turin, Italy on September 14, 1578. One of the principal reasons for doing so was so that St. Charles Borromeo might venerate it. The saint had been the first resident archbishop of Milan in more than eighty years. ... The Shroud was never returned to Chambery and was exposed for veneration each year on the 4th of May in front of the Palazzo Madama. ... On June 1, 1694, the Shroud was placed in a chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist designed by the abbot, Guarino Guarini. Except for a brief period during World War II, it has been kept there ever since. In 1939, Cardinal Maurilio Fossati, Archbishop of Turin, secretly moved the Shroud for safekeeping to the Benedictine Abbey of Montevergine located at Avellino, about 140 miles south of Rome. There it remained until it was returned to Turin in 1946. That year the last Duke of Savoy, King Umberto II, was deposed. He died in Geneva on March 18, 1983. In his will he bequeathed the Shroud to the Holy See, but the Pope left the relic in the custodial care of the Archbishop of Turin." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2001, pp.18-20). 14/11/2011 "The Fire of 1997Before midnight on 11 April, in the Guarini Royal Chapel of the Holy Shroud adjoining the Turin Cathedral, a fire broke out, the flames quickly engulfing the Chapel. The seventeenth-century altar was set ablaze, with debris raining down upon it from the high dome above. Because of restoration work that had been going on in the Chapel, including rewiring, the fire alarms had been switched off and there was no night watchman on duty. Fortunately, the Shroud, in its silver casket, had been removed earlier from its place above the elaborate Bertola altar and placed in a temporary display case in the Cathedral, behind the main altar. When the fire brigade arrived at the scene and burst into the Cathedral, the nave was filled with smoke billowing in from the Chapel entrance. As almost 200 firemen set about quenching the blaze, one of them rushed to the Shroud's display case and flailed a sledgehammer at its 4 centimetre-thick toughened glass panel. At great personal risk, fireman Mario Tematore smashed a hole in the glass - even though it was reputedly unbreakable. He withdrew the Shroud's 1.4 metre-long silver casket and rushed it to safety. .... The Guarini Chapel, totally guttered by fire, was left a smoldering, blackened ruin, and its entry wall adjoining the rear of the Cathedral was extensively damaged. ... Some days later, with the Shroud casket safely in the Cardinal's residence, it was opened and the cloth was removed and rolled onto a long table for examination. To the relief of all persons present, it had survived unharmed. In the aftermath of the fire ... the Shroud ... was transferred into a new, high-tech, bullet-proof glass conservation case, weighing 3 tons .... In an air- conditioned atmosphere of nitrogen and the inert argon gas, specially created for the cloth's protection, the Shroud was stretched out full length. The case was placed behind the cathedral's high altar and was surrounded by black curtaining." (Whiting, B., "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, 2006, pp.175-177, 179. Emphasis original).
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Created: 9 August, 2011. Updated: 14 Novober, 2011.