Dossier sindrone 4
Disturbance reigns among the disciples. The tomb is empty and certainly one cannot think that the body has been stolen, as women fear at first. On the other hand, the disciples have not yet connected the Scriptures and the words of Jesus, so that he would be resurrected. Meanwhile, the rumor that the body of Jesus is no longer in the tomb spread quickly in Jerusalem and the Jews, who had Jesus sentenced to death, are angry, they imagine a trick by the disciples, they had well foreseen it when they asked Pilate to have the tomb guarded by trusted guards. Therefore dismay grips the friends of Jesus. In this climate, who takes care of the shroud? And, if someone takes care of it, what does it decide to do?
The men, Simon Peter and John, have returned home. The women, Mary mother of James, and Mary of Magdala, coming out of the tomb, perhaps, quickly grab the clothes that wrapped the corpse of the Master and run away.
These are hectic hours. But it seems very unlikely that the shroud witnessing something extraordinary happened in that tomb, will be left to itself.
"Those clothes were stained with blood. Well, hadn't the Lord spoken, at the Last Supper, of "blood", symbol of the new, eternal Covenant ?! On the clothes was the blood of that Lord, a blood which, beyond the fact that certainly not everything preached by Jesus was clear to the disciples, acquired a very precious symbolic value: it was precisely the blood of the New, eternal Covenant. So those cloths could not be abandoned there and, certainly for this reason, they were kept._ explains Giorgio Tessiore"
We know that the blood of the martyrs was collected with diapers which were subsequently stored. It is even known that a disciple kept a handkerchief with which Saint Paul wiped his sweat and that handkerchief obtained a miracle.
Perhaps it is John who worries about the sheet (on the cross he became in effect a member of the "family" of Jesus, adopted son of Mary, Brother of the Master whom he adored and by whom he was considered the favorite, it is almost a duty for him!) perhaps Mary, perhaps Joseph of Arimathea, the owner of the tomb, perhaps someone else. Quickly you will have evaluated what to do, looked for the safest place to hide the precious cloth. To whom else can it be given over to be jealously preserved if not to the mother? Or perhaps it was feared that the soldiers would go in search of the stolen body of Jesus and then surely they would have gone to ask his mother for explanations too, which may have made him decide to entrust it to someone else, perhaps to Mary Magdalene. But we are only in the field of free assumptions. Not a word is reserved by the Gospels for the Cloth.
On the night of November 21, 1973, Professor Max Frei, professor of Criminology at the University of Zurich, expert in palynology, a branch of botany specializing in the study of pollen, performed 12 samples of dust from the fabric of the Shroud. The samples will be subjected to the scanning electron microscope and to the optical microscope in order to identify which types of pollen it is and to trace the geographical areas of origin. After 3 years of study and inspections in various countries of the world, in 1976, Professor Frei announced that he was able to identify 49 types of pollen corresponding to 49 different species of plants. For each one he identified the distribution area and the country, or city, in which the pollen of the plants in question could have contaminated the Shroud.
In 1978 Frei proceeded with other samples, bringing the total number of pollen species identified to 56.
The result is a geographical itinerary which fully confirms the one traced by the historians of the Turin Shroud and which, starting from Jerusalem, touches Edessa, Constantinople, France, Italy. While no trace has been found of botanical species belonging to other countries, which do not belong to this itinerary, on the contrary "the most frequent pollen on the Shroud is the same as that found in the sediments of Lake Genezareth in layers that date back to two thousand years ago" reports Frei.
Noting a large amount of pollen from plants unique to Palestine now present only in the sedimentary strata of the first century, Frei declares: "For me it is almost indisputable that the Holy Shroud was in Palestine in the first century."
At the same time, the research confirms "the antiquity of the fabric and indirectly its authenticity" states Baima Bollone, who in 1977, carrying out a careful examination with a scanning optical microscope on a Shroud thread, taken over a century earlier by Princess Clotilde of Savoy , find some of the pollen studied by the Swiss criminologist.
We must exclude the possibility that the contamination of these 56 different pollens, so heterogeneous in origin, could have occurred in a single place, as well as the possibility of a falsified contamination "because" says Professor Frei "no forger in past centuries would have thought of sprinkle the fabric with pollen from Palestine or Constantinople, disseminating microscopic traces, in the expectation that someone would then examine them "having to send them, moreover, from half the world, and reasoning according to scientific parameters (knowledge and instruments) unknown in past centuries.
So let's go back to Jerusalem.
After the resurrection and the finding of the empty tomb, Jesus appears several times to him, fulfilling what he had promised and had tried to make them understand when he was alive. Altogether about ten times. First to the women, when they find the tomb empty and fear that the body of Jesus has been stolen, and when they return from the tomb; on the same day to the two disciples of Emmaus and to a group of disciples in Jerusalem; following the disciples present Thomas who did not believe whoever had told him of the apparition of the Lord on the evening of the resurrection; on the lake of Tiberias; to the mount of Galilee; on other occasions before definitively ascending to the Father's abode.
Finally fear gives way to a renewed spirit of trust and joy, and the awareness takes shape that, beyond all personal fears, it is necessary to respect the command of the Master and bring the good news to the ends of the world.
The preaching begins.
The twelve, animated by great fervor, preach Jesus the Nazarene, crucified and risen, in the squares, in the houses, even in the Synagogues and, in his name, they work miracles and painstakingly build the foundations of the first Christian community.
A first church which, moreover, tears itself up immediately. Various small communities are formed, sometimes in dialectical competition, sometimes in open conflict with each other. All this in an environment, Palestine, hostile to them. The first natural opponents of Christians are the Jewish religious spheres: the great priests, often compromised with the administrative power of the Roman Empire, concerned exclusively with preserving the existing Jewish faith and averse to any novelty, especially in the face of the risk of undermining the their power; the Sadducees, a fundamentalist political-religious party in all respects. No less dangerous is the political enemy: Roman power, all aimed at maintaining authority over the territory, is undermined by those absolutely revolutionary principles of love preached by Christians.
The persecution begins, first by the Sanhedrin, later by the Romans, at the hands of Herod Agrippa and, with this, the dispersion of Christians from Jerusalem. The spread of the Word begins and conversions multiply, first in Palestine, then, from hand to hand, outside its borders, to the more or less neighboring lands reached through missionary journeys starting with Paul's preaching.
Anyone who has the sacred linen in charge will not be able to live this responsibility serenely. In a Jewish environment, keeping a funeral linen is not only unseemly and repugnant, it is forbidden. The Mosaic law in fact forbids touching anything that came into contact with a corpse, all the worse if it is the shroud of Jesus, the crucifix, the man condemned to death for having proclaimed himself King of the Jews, and - so it is thought - stolen by his disciples to make him believe risen.
In preaching and persecution there is perhaps the key to the story of the Cloth. Here, in the story, a cloth with the imprint of the image of Jesus enters the scene which, according to tradition, would have arrived in Edessa (Turkey) immediately before or immediately after the death of Jesus himself, the Mandylion, greatly venerated by the church Byzantine.
Although, with regard to the Mandylion, history and legend are intertwined, most historians, scholars of the Shroud, agree in affirming that the Mandylion is the Shroud.
We are in the field of hypotheses, but if this were to be founded, then probably the Shroud, perhaps during a moment of particular danger for the Christian community in Jerusalem or for its guardian, is brought to Edessa, perhaps by one of those Christians who left the city fleeing persecution, or a witness-preacher of the new faith. _Ancient records indicated in a cave near the mouth of the Jordan the place where the Lord's funerary cloths were initially kept._ tells Giorgio Tessiore. "In Edessa the canvas, if properly folded so that only the face was visible, could be preserved as a portrait of Jesus, just as the Mandylion is historically known. Surely the cloth is much more
<<acceptable>>
The history of the Mandylion can be found in the liturgical books of the Byzantine church, which has preserved until today, on August 16, the feast of the Mandylion. Professor Georges Gharib, professor at the Marianum in Rome, recounted it in 1978 at the second International Congress of Sindonology in Turin. "The Sinassario is a kind of news, more or less historical, which informs about the content and the object of a feast. In telling the story of the Holy Mandylion, the author goes back to that of King Abgar of Edessa. Abgar was toparco di Edessa and suffered at the same time from leprosy and gout. He had tried in vain every doctor and medicine. Having learned of the miracles that Jesus worked in Jerusalem, in the midst of the ingratitude of the Jews, precisely in the days of the Passion (specifies the Synaxary), he called to himself a certain Ananias, who also passed for a good portrait painter, and entrusted him with a double task: to deliver a letter to Jesus and make a portrait of him as faithful as possible. The letter sounded like this: << Abgar, topark of the city of Edessa, to Jesus Christ excellent doctor who appeared in Jerusalem, hello! I've heard about you and the healings you work without medication. In fact, they say that you show the Czechs, walk the lame, that you cleanse the lepers, drive out demons and impure spirits, heal the oppressed from long illnesses and raise the dead. Having heard all this about you, I have come to the conviction of two things: either that you are the son of that God who does these things, or that you are God himself. Therefore I have written to you asking you to come to me and heal me from the disease that afflicts me and to settle with me. Because I have heard that the Jews murmur against you and want to harm you. My city is very small, it is true, but honorable and it will be enough for both of us to live in peace >> As for the portrait to be performed, Ananias tries, but without success. Jesus, guessing his difficulties, asks for water to wash himself and a towel: on it he imprints the image of his face. The towel was delivered to Ananias, together with the following letter-response of Jesus: << Blessed are you, or Abgar, because you have believed in me, although you have not seen me. In fact, it is written about me that whoever sees me will not believe in me, so that those who do not see me may believe in me and live. As for the invitation you made me to come to you, I reply that I must fulfill my entire mission here, and that after its fulfillment I return to him who sent me. When I have ascended with him, I will send you one of my disciples, named Taddeo, to heal you from evil and offer eternal life and peace to you and yours, and to do what is necessary for the city to defend it from enemies. >> The Synopsis adds that Christ placed at the bottom of the letter seven seals bearing letters in Hebrew, the meaning of which is as follows: "wonderful sight of God." To confirm how legend and history are confused in the Mandylion, other manuscripts refer to other versions on how the image of Christ on the cloth would have formed. The two most important versions, alternatives to the Synaxary, narrate that Christ imprinted his portrait on the canvas when he wiped his face after baptism and, the second, that Christ imprinted his portrait on the Mandylion when he wiped his face after the sweating of blood, observed by St. Luke, during the agony of Gethsemane. Gharib continues his story: "Abgar welcomes the letter and portrait with great honors and deep veneration. He immediately heals from his ailments, with the exception of a spot of leprosy on his forehead. After Jesus' ascension the apostle Thaddeus arrives in Edessa, as promised. He takes Abgar and his family to the baptismal font: Abgar comes out completely healed and full of zeal for the new religion. The miraculous image was placed in the most beautiful place in the city, a niche "from which a famous statue was removed" pagan, and exposed to the veneration of all, with the inscription << Christ God, whoever hopes in you will not be lost >>. There he remained under the reign of Abgar and his son. But the nephew, continues the synaxary, returned to paganism and decided to destroy the precious relic. Warned in a dream of the sovereign's criminal plan, the bishop of the city, whose name is not specified, had it walled up secretly in the niche, hiding it by a ceramic and lighting a small lamp in front of it".
This is a story that cannot be that of the Shroud. No, but it could be the purpose-built legend we speculated. Meanwhile, in defining the Mandylion, the Synaxary, translated in the story with the term towel, speaks of a piece of tetradiplon fabric, that is quadruple, folded in four, and, as Wilson suggests: "If the Shroud is folded twice again, it literally produces 4 x 2 folds: therefore only the face appears ", therefore the portrait of the face of Christ, on the towel of Edessa. Not only that: but if the funeral linen that had welcomed Jesus had to be hidden like a portrait, and very evidently that could not be confused with a portrait, that is, a painted representation, what better way to recognize, indeed to attribute to it, the definition of an achiropite icon, that is, a portrait not made by man's hand, not painted, mounting the legend of the towel delivered by Jesus to the king ?! It may be chance but it is curious that it is specified, almost insistently, that Abgar addresses Jesus during the days of the Passion.
"The sacred image was thus forgotten for long centuries, until the time of Chosroes, king of Persia, who after having sacked all the cities of Asia, besieged Edessa, reducing the population to extremes." Garib continues "A revelation revealed to Eulavio, bishop of the city, the existence of the relic. After the wall was hollowed out, the image appeared. Once the relic was taken out, a procession was organized on the city walls: the whole military apparatus of the Persians burned down and they had to lift the siege and flee suffering a serious defeat. Note that this last episode took place. refers to a historical fact:Ecclesiastical History , written around the year 600. The same author calls the image theoteuktos that is << made by God >>. Since then the miraculous image was preserved and venerated in Edessa as the most precious treasure. In 639 it was the turn of the Arabs who occupied the city but did not prevent the veneration of the Holy Face, widely known throughout the East and whose feast was celebrated in many places following the example of the Edessen church".
Therefore, until the sixth century, nothing is known about the Canvas and even advancing hypotheses becomes difficult. All the time, he had to remain in Edessa, if in the early sixth century, as is historically attested, the canvas was brought to light from the niche above the west door of the city, where it had been hidden perhaps to save it, as the Synassary.
Gharib, always relying on the Synaxary, continues the story of the Mandylion "Since all the most beautiful things flowed towards the imperial city, it was also the divine will that that holy and ineffable icon should become part of its treasure. There is, in fact, many proofs. that, once the iconoclasm was over and the legitimacy of devotion to images was re-established in the Council of 843, the hunt for relics began, to fill many gaps caused by over two centuries of struggles and persecutions. achiropite. " and of these "the best known and most widely mentioned was the Edessen image. But let us return to the Synoxary. It mentions the many attempts of the Byzantine emperors to take possession of the relic. Finally it fell to the Roman emperor I Lecapeno (920-944) the honor of realizing this great dream. After long negotiations, the relic was sold to him, but at a high price: the payment of twelve thousand silver denarii, the release of two hundred Saracen prisoners and the promise that the imperial army would refrain from setting foot in Edessa and its possessions.
"It must be said that all this was not enough, in fact there was a real popular uprising against the sale of the Mandylion." It is known from other sources that the negotiations had taken place with the Muslim rulers of the city. Knowing this, the Christian community of Edessa had rebelled but had to yield to the reasons of state, the relic could thus begin its wanderings. The Synoxary specifies that not only the precious image was taken away but also the handwritten letter of Jesus to King Abgar. All, other sources add, was contained in a precious reliquary. A procession was formed in which, again according to the Synaxary, the bishops of Samosata and Edessa as well as other pious people had taken their places. On the way, wonders were worked out. The Sinassario reports that, when the procession arrived at the Optimati district in the church of the Theotòkos called << di Eusebio >>, it was acclaimed by large crowds and many sick were healed. Even a possessed person began to shout: << Receive, oh Constantinople, glory, honor and gladness; and you, or Porphyrogenitus, your empire >>. Having said this, the man was immediately healed. According to the Sinassario, on August 15 of the year of creation 6452, which corresponds to the year 944, the procession arrives at the sanctuary of the Theotòkos of Blacherne, where the relic is exposed to the faithful and venerated by the imperial family, which was already in the sanctuary of Blacherne to celebrate the Assumption, by the nobility and by all the people. The next day, August 16 - the Synaxary continues - after the last farewell, the sacred image was carried on the shoulders in a large procession, led by the patriarch Theophilacus, by the young emperors, the father being held in bed by serious illness, and accompanied by the whole senate and by the clergy. To the singing of hymns and in the midst of myriads of lamps and lights, the procession, having entered through the Golden Gate, goes through the whole city until it reaches the great church of Santa Sofia. The precious relic is brought to the sanctuary and exhibited for public veneration. Then the procession passes through the imperial palace and arrives at the Theotòkos church called << del Faro >>, where the relic is permanently placed. The Synoxary concludes as follows: << There the venerated and holy Image of the Lord God and Savior Our Jesus Christ was placed, for the glory of the faithful, the safeguarding of the imperial family, the protection of the whole city and the stability of Christians >> Others sources report that the relic was transferred for the first time on the evening of August 15 to the church of the Faro; on the 16th brought back in procession on the imperial ship to the height of the Golden Gate, from where he entered the city to the church of Santa Sofia and beyond,
From the year 1000 and for about two centuries the Shroud was therefore in Constantinople, even before the arrival of the Cloth, the true capital of precious Christian relics. Apparently exhibited every Friday for the veneration of the people and proudly exhibited to imperial guests.
Traces of the Mandylion will be lost with the fourth crusade in 1204.
"The examination of what is known on the Edessa canvas", says Wilson. "reveals a series of fascinating parallels with the Shroud of Turin. An image of Christ on canvas is depicted - a rather unusual medium. The image of the Mandylion of Edessa is specifically described as << a moist secretion with no coloring or artificial trace >> and not composed of << earthly colors >> The known history of the Mandylion (that is of a defined historical object) goes up to the time of its disappearance during the fourth Crusade of 1204 and usually provides almost the entire missing period of the Shroud. " Wilson does not hide the objections: " The manuscripts during the conservation period of the Mandylion in Edessa (until 944) and then in Constantinople (until 1204) almost without exception describe the image on the canvas only for the face of Christ. Even the copies of the artists, found only from the 11th century, similarly show only the face. In the description of the direct observation of the Mandylion, by the Emperor of Constantinople at the time of his arrival in the city in 944, it is clear that the people of that time had no idea that the canvas could be a shroud. "And immediately, however. , he adds, "The value of all these arguments can be refuted in one fell swoop if we consider a single hypothesis: in that period, before the fourth century, that is, before its discovery in Edessa, the Shroud, as we know it today, it was folded so that only the face was visible and was applied and / or framed on an axis so that access to the internal and hidden folds was not possible without complicated disassembly. On the basis of such a hypothesis it is understandable that someone, even now, observing the fourth century canvas, without knowing what the folds, not visible, would hide, would make precisely the same deductions made about its composition. To the artists of the time, unaware that the canvas was a sheet, the eyes of the image seemed open and fixed, suggesting that it had formed while Jesus was alive. Furthermore, if observing in a moderately mitigated uniform light, they had made a small distinction between the color of the blood and the rest of the face, they would readily deduce that the drops, which we know caused by the crown of thorns, were the sweat of blood, as was said of Jesus in the agony of Gethsemane. Now the question is: can such a hypothesis be supported? The official history of the Mandylion, formed at the court of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the mid-10th century, specifically notes that, probably at the time of King Abgar, the Mandylion was mounted on a plank and decorated with gold. Copies of the Mandylion, datable to the 12th century and earlier, show the canvas stretched for a long time, surrounded by a border, the ends of which are knotted by apparent nails, arranged on both sides of the canvas. Such nails, inserted into a reinforcing board, would provide an ideal, by no means ruinous, method of mounting the canvas.
"Mandylion is a Syriac and Arabic term, the meaning of which is handkerchief, towel, shroud." In the officiating of the feast the Mandylion is defined in many ways: similarity imprinted on the fabric, imprint, effigy, piece of cloth folded in four, and rarely the shroud (only in the Synaxary in verse), and here we must remember everything that has been said a little while ago on the meanings of the various terms of the shroud and the Shroud. But from 1000 onwards the term Mandylion is increasingly replaced by the term Shroud, to indicate that evidently with the transfer to Constantinople it was discovered what actually was the object.
In 944, the year of the transfer of the Cloth from Edessa to Constantinople, a sermon, kept in the Vatican archives and discovered by Professor Gino Zaninotto of the University of Rome, of the archdeacon Gregory of Constantinople, in which the entire Shroud is described.
In April 1990, the friar Bruno Bonnet-Eymard, at the V National Congress of Studies on the Shroud, presented a miniature, from the 13th century, of the Byzantine chronograph code of the imperial court of Constantinople, at the time of Emperor Alexius I Comnenus at the end of the year 1000, Giovanni Skylitze, preserved in the National Library of Madrid, which depicts the presentation of the cloth that has just arrived from Edessa to the emperor, and stretched out in its full length, exactly a funerary sheet, the Shroud as we know it us today. But there is more. The pictorial image is so clear and accurate in detail that a rigid object which is the container of the Mandylion is clearly visible under the sheet. The cloth also clearly bears a series of traces of folds, precisely eight, as many as there are in the Mandylion. Folds that, through a system of percentage calculation of the image-cloth proportions, are determined to measure, each, about 50 centimeters: multiplied by eight, how many are the folds (both of the Mandylion and of the cloth that appears in the miniature) we obtain 4 meters approximately in length, that is to say the length of the Shroud of Turin.
At this point it must be deduced that in Constantinople, for the first time, the Shroud, folded in on itself to be confused with any portrait (or almost!) By some faithful friend of Jesus, is "unveiled" completely? This is confirmed by the evolution that, in that period, we have in religious art, regarding the way of painting the dead Christ: no longer wrapped in bandages, in the manner of Egyptian mummies, but naked on a sheet and with the position of the limbs exactly as they appear in the Man of the Shroud. Not to mention documents of the time that speak of the Shroud, and no longer of the Mandylion, or rather of the "funeral sheets of Jesus" even describing them in linen and which still "scatter" perfumes that "have enclosed the indescribable corpse,
A recently translated Syriac document states that by stretching the Mandylion one could see the whole figure of the body of Christ.
A bad crusade that of 1204, wanted by Pope Innocent III, and arrested in Constantinople. A hodgepodge of conquerors, soldiers, stragglers, whores, swords, thieves, sadistic free destruction, kill and in a few days, against all those who had been papal orders and projects and agreements with the Byzantine emperor, gut the city, from almost a thousand years capital of civilization. Before the commanded realize what is happening Constantinople, with its houses and numerous churches, is already in pieces. The troops are ordered to return the loot. But not everything is rendered, of course. It is not clear whether the Shroud was among the many precious objects that ended up among the loot not returned or whether it was taken away from the city to be saved.
For a century and a half, nothing will be known about the Cloth, and its traces are once again lost.
According to the Spanish scholar JLCarreño Etxeandia "Otto de la Roche, one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade, headquartered in the Blacherne district, had entered the church of Santa Maria during the days of the looting and had wanted that sacred booty for himself as a leader. Otto de la Roche "perhaps from Greece, where he was later appointed Duke of Athens," found a way to send the sacred sheet to his father, Ponce de la Roche, on French soil. But since the relic burned the old man's hands. knight, he gave it to the archbishop of Besançon, Amedeo di Tramelay".
In support of this thesis a manuscript of 1208, preserved in the Library of Besançon, which bears the report of the donation, by Ponce de la Roche, to the archbishop of Besançon, Amedeo di Tramelay, of the Shroud that his son, Otto de la Roche, Latin Duke of Athens, had sent him from Constantinople. In confirmation, a plea to the Pope, contained in the Diplomatic Code of the Original Constantinian Angelic Order, dated 1 August 1205, in which Teodoro Angelo-Comneno, brother of Michele Despot of Epirus, in the name of his brother, denounces to the Pontiff that the year before, the Crusader soldiers, Venetians and Franks, in sacking the city took possession not only of gold and various riches, the former, also of relics, the latter, including the Sacred Sheet, transported, it is said, to Athens (duke of Athens newly appointed was precisely, at the conclusion of the sack of Constantinople, Otto de la Roche). He therefore asks the Pope's benevolent intervention for the return of the sheet to the city. Stolen from Besançon, it is sent, perhaps by the thieves themselves out of fear, to Philip VI of Valois who, according to a document preserved in the National Library of Paris, offers it to Godfrey of Charny, Count of Lirey. An uncertain donation, however. In fact, if it is true that certainly in 1353 (perhaps in 1356) the Shroud was in the hands of Goffredo di Charny, Count of Lirey, it is equally true that the count could have had the cloth by inheritance, or still always by donation of Philip VI. , but according to a completely different historical path. An uncertain donation, however. In fact, if it is true that certainly in 1353 (perhaps in 1356) the Shroud was in the hands of Goffredo di Charny, Count of Lirey, it is equally true that the count could have had the cloth by inheritance, or still always by donation of Philip VI. , but according to a completely different historical path. An uncertain donation, however. In fact, if it is true that certainly in 1353 (perhaps in 1356) the Shroud was in the hands of Goffredo di Charny, Count of Lirey, it is equally true that the count could have had the cloth by inheritance, or still always by donation of Philip VI. , but according to a completely different historical path.
Some scientists, including Ian Wilson, think that the Shroud was taken during the battle of Constantinople by the Templars. A high-ranking Templar governor of Normandy named Godfrey of Charny was burned at the stake in Paris in 1314, during Philip the Fair's great offensive against the Templar Order in France. There is a possibility that the dignitary was related to the Charny of Lirey, to whom, therefore, the cloth would have come by inheritance. A few decades ago the discovery in England, during the collapse of an ancient house in the past home of a Templar, of a wooden panel depicting a face that corresponds perfectly to the type of "bearded" face which, it is historically verified, was revered by these religious knights. Face with an absolutely striking resemblance to that of the Shroud. It should be added that the dimensions of the panel correspond to those of the Shroud folded in 8 parts.
It is Giovanni Pisanu, Professor of Church History at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Sardinia, to explain, at the V National Congress of Sindonology in 1990, the thesis of a historical itinerary of the Cloth that runs from the crusade of 1204 to that of Pope Clement YOU. "In 1337 Godfrey I of Charny made his debut in the career of arms as a bachelor under the Count d'Eu, Connestabile of France. In 1345 he enlisted in the crusader army set up by Umberto I, sovereign of the Dauphiné, to participate in the << Holy Union> > wanted by Pope Clement VI against the Turkish invasion of Anatolia which proved to be a great danger for the whole West. The Crusader army, formed by the flower of the French and Italian knights, left Marseille in May 1345, he wintered in Euboea and on 24 June 1346 he besieged and conquered the city of Smyrna. A few months later, on 2 August, Godfrey of Charny received the coveted knighthood for his merits in the battle and conquest of Smyrna. But the worsening of the Hundred Years War between France and England and the French defeat of Crecy (1346), forced the Crusader army to anticipate its return to Europe, which took place in the summer of 1347. "On this occasion Godfrey I of Charny would have come into possession, for war booty, of the Cloth. "Obviously the Crusader army, on its return to Europe, also brought back the loot of relics, placing them in the hands of the king, Philip VI of Valois,
The Hundred Years War sets France to fire and sword. Goffredo di Charny is taken prisoner during a battle and released only after seven months and upon ransom. Once at liberty he has a church built in Lirey, which will be managed by a Collegiate Church, and to it he gives what he declares to be the Shroud asking for its exposure.
Lirey - Northern France - a country that no longer exists today. It is from here that we must start to reconstruct the history of the Shroud. I say that it is useless to go back because nothing is known about it, it is an exercise made only of hypotheses and conjectures
says Don Luigi Fossati.
It is 1355. Word spreads quickly and crowds from all over France rush to pay homage to the Holy Sheet, putting the bishop responsible for the territory, Henry of Poitiers, in difficulty, who having not authorized the exhibition, in 1357, decides to open an investigation and have the Cloth removed. In September of the previous year, Godfrey I had died in the battle of Poitiers. _The Shroud therefore remains kept in the Charny family, as a private object, until 1389, when the son of Goffredo exhibits the Shroud again without the permission of the bishop but the approval of the papal legate._ says Don Fossati _The controversy breaks out. The bishop, Pietro d'Arcis, of Troyes, in whose jurisdiction Lirey was, probably not without a touch of resentment at having been bypassed, writes a memorial, to the antipope Clement VII, preserved in the National Library of Paris and entitled << The truth on the cloth of Lirey about which I intend to write to the Pope as briefly as possible >>. In the memorial the bishop claims to have known that the Cloth was painted. In support, however, does not bring any evidence._ Why? if by revealing the forger's name he would inevitably dismantle what he called a financial affair, which had brought to Lirey an enormous mass of pilgrims and related offers and (dishonest) earnings for the Collegiate? Why does he limit himself to inferences that cast suspicion on the dean of the canons of the Collegiate Church? And, on the other hand, why the artist so brilliant as to paint that wonderful artistic masterpiece (such it would be) has not revealed himself to the honors of history? The whole memorial of Peter of Arcis is based on hearsay, or rather, on what he learns from the investigation carried out by his predecessor, 34 years earlier, Henry of Poitiers, who, in turn, referred to the opinions of theologians and < <prudent men >>, as they are defined in the memorial, as regards the affirmation that it was the work of an artist and the theological assumption that if a Shroud, with the image of the body of Christ, had not existed the Gospels they would have, how to say, let it slip away. Neither Peter of Arcis nor Henry of Poitiers ever saw the Shroud. _ In all likelihood, however, continues Don Fossati _ the document, despite having become public, never reached the Pope, even though he was probably aware of its existence and contents. Why is it possible to keep in doubt that it was never delivered to the Pope? First, because in no official document the Pope mentions the memorial but also for another reason. A few years ago on the back of this document, kept in Paris, the address of a certain Fulcone was discovered, not that of the Pope. of the recipient. Who is the Fulcone reported? Probably a chancellor or in any case an expert in bureaucratic language, who had the task of drafting the document in curial terms and, once in good shape, as we would say, deliver it to the Pope. We cannot imagine why this did not happen. In fact, we have reason to believe that the document did not reach the Pope. In the papal protocol there is no trace of the arrival of this document. Even more important: when Clement VII issued a bull and wrote letters to the Bishop and the chancellors of the district he did not name the Bishop's memorial. This detail is very important, because in the bull, if the bishop's document had arrived, it should have been quoted, in accordance with the curial style of the time and the situation. I repeat: the document has become public, but not official. Even if the Pope has certainly become aware of the Bishop's statements. At this point the attitude of the Pontiff in the face of the situation becomes interesting. _ Of course, it is very interesting to study the terminology used by the Pope in the bulls, the first dated January 6, 1390, the second on June 1 of the same year, and to compare the events connected to the terminology ._ continues don Fossati _In the bull of January 6, perhaps for keep the bishop on the one hand and the owners on the other, the Cloth is initially indicated with the term << Figura seu representacio >>, an expression that indicates the figures or rather the footprints on the sheet, a little further on, instead, with the the expression << pictura seu tabula >> clearly indicates an artifact. Six months later, on May 31, on the copy of the bull deposited in the Vatican Archives, the Pope orders a correction: he deletes the expression << pictura seu tabula >> and has it replaced with the term << Figura seu representacio >>. Of course, in the copies sent to the various referents, the expression << pictura seu tabula >> remains. The next day, June 1, he publishes a new bull, in which he grants ample indulgences according to the object kept in the church of Lirey, to define which he uses the term << Figura seu representacio >>, which he believes << venerabiliter >> ._ It is the defeat of Pietro d'Arcis. The expositions continue only in compliance with the Pope's recommendations: first of all that of clarifying to the faithful.
But how was it possible, not for the two bishops who did not see the Cloth, but for those <<prudent>> people of whom the memorial speaks, for theologians and commissioned by Henry of Poitiers for the investigation, to confuse the Shroud with a painting? How was such a mistake possible? Advancing the hypothesis of bad faith, one should think of a sort of plot that spans almost half a century, from Henry of Poitiers to Peter of Arcis. And again: why is the Pope's attitude so ambiguous? because he has a term on the first bull substituted that clearly identifies the Shroud in a painting and in the second, the day after the correction, while he grants ample indulgences to the faithful who honor Lirey's "cloth", venerable, does it require it to be advertised as a representation and not the shroud of Christ? And why did the Collegiate and the Charny family accept this last imposition without attempting any opposition? There are those, such as Giovanni Pisanu, professor of Church history at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Sardinia, advanced the hypothesis that the one attacked by the bishops was really a fake, or rather a double (painting) of the Shroud. "it is conceivable the existence of a copy of the current Shroud of Lirey-Chambéry-Turin, cleverly reproduced to subtract the original, considered the authentic sheet that wrapped the body of Christ, from the danger of destruction, probable in the hand of the enemy; the strong opposition to the canons and the Charny family would have acted on this copy, from bishop Henry of Poitiers to Pietro d'Arcis and to Clement VII himself. The hypothesis is not without some clues that make it legitimate and plausible. The first is the non-identifiability of the current Shroud of Turin with that described by Pietro d'Arcis and by Clement VII which, unequivocally, they present only as pictura. Another clue is the ambivalent and contradictory attitude of the canons of Lirey and of the Family of Charny who, in Pietro d'Arcis, appear to be the supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud, but with Clement VII they are cautious, almost submissive and accept, even though to overcome unscathed the direct confrontation with the very strong opposition, that the Shroud be called by the Pope << Figura seu rapresentacio >> ". The hypothesis is not without some clues that make it legitimate and plausible. The first is the non-identifiability of the current Shroud of Turin with that described by Pietro d'Arcis and by Clement VII which, unequivocally, they present only as pictura. Another clue is the ambivalent and contradictory attitude of the canons of Lirey and of the Family of Charny who, in Pietro d'Arcis, appear to be the supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud, but with Clement VII they are cautious, almost submissive and accept, even though to overcome unscathed the direct confrontation with the very strong opposition, that the Shroud be called by the Pope << Figura seu rapresentacio >> ". The hypothesis is not without some clues that make it legitimate and plausible. The first is the non-identifiability of the current Shroud of Turin with that described by Pietro d'Arcis and by Clement VII which, unequivocally, they present only as pictura. Another clue is the ambivalent and contradictory attitude of the canons of Lirey and of the Family of Charny who, in Pietro d'Arcis, appear to be the supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud, but with Clement VII they are cautious, almost submissive and accept, even though to overcome unscathed the direct confrontation with the very strong opposition, that the Shroud be called by the Pope << Figura seu rapresentacio >> ". The first is the non-identifiability of the current Shroud of Turin with that described by Pietro d'Arcis and by Clement VII which, unequivocally, they present only as pictura. Another clue is the ambivalent and contradictory attitude of the canons of Lirey and of the Family of Charny who, in Pietro d'Arcis, appear to be the supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud, but with Clement VII they are cautious, almost submissive and accept, even though to overcome unscathed the direct confrontation with the very strong opposition, that the Shroud be called by the Pope << Figura seu rapresentacio >> ". The first is the non-identifiability of the current Shroud of Turin with that described by Pietro d'Arcis and by Clement VII which, unequivocally, they present only as pictura. Another clue is the ambivalent and contradictory attitude of the canons of Lirey and of the Family of Charny who, in Pietro d'Arcis, appear to be the supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud, but with Clement VII they are cautious, almost submissive and accept, even though to overcome unscathed the direct confrontation with the very strong opposition, that the Shroud be called by the Pope << Figura seu rapresentacio >> ".
Until 1418 the Shroud remained in the church of Santa Maria di Lirey. In that year the canons, for security reasons, give the cloth and other precious relics to Umberto de la Roche, husband of the heir of Godfrey II, Margherita di Charny, for conservation until better times.
About twenty years later, in 1438, on the death of Umberto, the canons ask Margherita to return all the relics entrusted to her late husband. A quarrel erupts between the canons of Santa Maria di Lirey and the current owner, which will last for years and will see, several times, the intervention of the competent Courts. Margherita will never return the towel, which she considers a family asset. She will separate from the Shroud only in 1453 (perhaps in 1452), in Geneva, when, with the relative notarial deed, she will transfer it to the Dukes of Savoy, Luigi (better known as Ludovico) and his wife Anna di Lusignano princess of Cyprus.
