Turin Shroud Encyclopedia
© Stephen E. Jones

Locations of the Shroud: Turin 1694-1918

This is the entry, "Locations of the Shroud: Turin 1694-1918," in my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. It is a continuation from Locations of the Shroud: "Lirey c.1355-Chambéry 1471," "Chambéry 1471-Turin 1578" and "Turin 1578-1694." I am working through the topics in the entry, "Shroud of Turin, expanding on them.

[Index] [Previous: Locations: Turin 1578-1694] [Next: Locations of the Shroud: 1918-Present]

Introduction. This is the fourth of a five-part series of entries which will briefly trace the locations of the cloth today known as Shroud of Turin, from its first appearance in undisputed history (see previous) at Lirey, France in c.1355, to its current location since 1578 (apart from short periods due to wars) in or around St John the Baptist Cathedral, Turin, Italy. It is partly based on my 2012 post, "The Shroud's location."

Turin 1694-1701. On 1 June 1694 the Shroud was moved into its purpose-built Chapel of the Holy Shroud, designed by the architect

[Above (enlarge): Interior of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud as it had been since 1694 before it was closed for repair in 1990[1].]

Guarino Guarini (1624-83), located between Turin Cathedral and the Savoy Royal Palace, as planned by Duke Charles Emmanuel I (1562–1630) in 1618 (see previous). The Shroud was deposited over the high altar in its shrine designed by engineer-architect Antonio Bertola (1647-1715). In 1699, after a series of daughters and miscarriages, a son Victor Amadeus (1699-1715) was born to Duke Victor Amadeus II (1666–1732) and Duchess Anne Maria d'Orléans (1669-1728), but he was to die aged 15 in 1715. A second son, Charles Emmanuel III (1701-73) was born in 1701 who would become the next Duke in 1730.

Turin 1701 - Genoa 1706. But also in 1701, the death in the previous year of the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II (1661–1700), sparked the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). Savoy had aligned itself with the Austrian Hapsburg side against France because only the former would grant the Savoy state independence, but then if France won, Savoy would cease to exist. Also, Victor Amadeus II's cousin, Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736), "one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history," was the supreme commander of the Habsburg forces. In May 1706 the French began to besiege Turin itself. So in June Duchess Anne fled with her children, Victor Amadeus II's mother Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy (1644–1724), and the Shroud, south to the seaport of Genoa for the

[Above (enlarge): Route (marked by red `diamonds') the Shroud was taken from Turin via Cherasco (16th June), Mondovì (24th), Ceva (25th), Ormea (26th), Caravonica (not shown), to Albenga. From Albenga the Shroud was then sailed via Savona to Genoa arriving on 16th July[2].]

Shroud's and their safety. After three months of heroic resistance by the Turinese, the French were about to overrun the city when on 7 September Prince Eugene's forces arrived. At his direction, Prussian infantry led by Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (1676-1747) broke

[Above (enlarge): "Battle of Turin: The attack of Prince Leopold of Anhalt Dessau"[3].]

through the encircling French forces, beginning a rout which lifted the siege.

Turin 1706-98. In October 1706, following the September defeat of the French in the Siege of Turin, the Shroud was returned to Turin. Under The Treaty of Utrecht signed in April 1713, Victor Amadeus II was made King of Sicily, but in 1720 he was forced to exchanged this title for the more geographically practical King of Sardinia. In 1730 Victor Amadeus II abdicated in favour of his eldest son Charles Emmanuel III. In 1722 King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia married Anne Christine of Sulzbach (1704–1723), but she died after having given birth to a son Victor Amadeus Theodore (1723–25), who himself died in infancy. In 1724 Charles Emmanuel III married Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg (1706–35) and their first child, Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia (1726–96) would succeed his father as king upon his death in 1773. In 1728 King Victor Amadeus II's wife Anne d'Orléans died, followed in 1732 by Victor Amadeus II himself, and then King Charles Emmanuel III's second wife Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg in 1735. In 1737 Charles Emmanuel III married Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine (1711-41) and an exposition of the Shroud was held to mark that

[Above (enlarge): Engraving by Filippo Juvarra (1678–1736) of the 1737 exposition of the Shroud from a pavilion in Turin's Piazza Castello to mark the marriage of King Charles Emmanuel III and Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine[4].]

occasion. Prince Victor Amadeus III married Maria Antonietta (1729–1785), a daughter of King Philip V of Spain (1683–1746), in 1750. They had three sons who survived into adulthood: Charles Emmanuel IV (1751–1819), Victor Emmanuel I (1759–1824) and Charles Felix (1765-1831). The Kingdom of Sardinia and other Savoy states in 1792 joined the First Coalition against the French First Republic, but was beaten in 1796 by Napoleon (1769–1821) and Victor Amadeus III was forced to sign the disadvantageous Treaty of Paris in 1796, which gave the French army free passage through Piedmont. In 1796 Victor Amadeus III died and his eldest son Charles Emmanuel IV succeeded him as King of Sardinia. In late 1798 the French general Joubert occupied Turin and forced Charles Emmanuel IV and family to leave for the island of Sardinia, without the Shroud! From now on the Shroud would be effectively under the control of the Roman Catholic Church.

Turin 1798-1831. In 1802, following the death of his saintly wife, Marie Clotilde de Bourbon (1759–1802), Charles Emmanuel IV abdicated childless in favour of his next eldest brother Victor Emmanuel I (1759-1824). In 1804, Pope Pius VII (1742–1823), having been summoned to Paris to crown Napoleon, made a special stop-over in Turin on his journey and at his request had a private showing of the Shroud. Following Napoleon's defeats in 1812 and 1814, forcing his abdication in April 1814, Victor Emmanuel I returned to Turin in May. On 20 May 1814 he held a public exposition of the Shroud, the first since 1775, to mark the return to Turin of the Savoy royal family. Then on 21 May 1815, Pope Pius VII presided over an exposition of the Shroud, himself holding it, assisted by other prelates, on the balcony of the Palazzo Madama, behind which is a castle, where it may have been

kept, safe from

[Right (enlarge): Palazzo Madama, Turin[5]. The 14th century castle to which this 18th century facade was added, can be just seen over its roof.]

Napoleon? Under the terms of the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), Victor Emmanuel I received back his former territories with the addition of Genoa. However, he had only daughters who survived into adulthood, so in 1821 he abdicated as King of Sardinia in favour of his younger brother, Charles Felix (1765-1831) and died in 1824. But King Charles Felix died childless in 1831, and there being no closer male descendants, his distant cousin Charles Albert (1798–1849), Prince of Carignano, the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Thomas Francis (1596–1656), who was the youngest son of Duke Charles Emmanuel I (1562–1630), succeeded him as King of Sardinia-Piedmont.

Turin 1831-1918. In 1817 Charles Albert had married Maria Theresa of Austria (1801–1855) and in 1820 their first child, Prince Victor Emmanuel II (1820-78) was born. King Charles Albert died in 1849 and Victor Emmanuel II succeeded him as King of Sardinia-Piedmont. In 1842 Victor Emmanuel II married Adelaide of Austria (1822–1855).

[Above: (enlarge): Part of a lithograph, "Ostension from Palazzo Madama," by Jean Junck, depicting the 1842 exhibition of the Shroud to mark the wedding of Victor Emmanuel II and Adelaide of Austria[6].]

Their first child was Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy (1843–1911) and their second was Prince Umberto I (1844–1900). In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II became the first King of Italy since the 6th century. Umberto I married his cousin Margherita of Savoy (1851–1926) in 1868. Instead of a brief display of the Shroud from a balcony, a four-day exposition of the Shroud, mounted on a board above Turin Cathedral's high altar was held to mark the occasion. Following this exposition, Princess Clotilde, working on her knees, repaired some loose threads on the Shroud and replaced its 1694 black silk lining with one of crimson taffeta. King Umberto I and Queen Margherita's only child, Prince Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947) was born in 1869. Victor Emmanuel II died in 1878 and was succeeded as King of Italy by his eldest, and only surviving son, Umberto I. In 1896 Victor Emmanuel III married Princess Elena of Montenegro (1873–1952). A special exposition of the Shroud was to be held in 1898, to mark

[Above (enlarge): Poster advertising the 1898 exposition of the Shroud. The depiction of the Shroud is not a photograph since Secondo Pia's first photographs of the Shroud (see below) had not yet been taken[7].]

the fiftieth anniversary of the 1848 Sardinian Constitution upon which the Italian Constitution was based. It was proposed that the Shroud be photographed for the first time, but the Shroud's owner, the ultra-conservative King Umberto I regarded that as unseemly for such a holy relic. However, he eventually relented and a local amateur (but proficient) photographer, lawyer and city councillor Secondo Pia (1855–1941), was given the task. Pia took his photographs and when he developed his glass plates, to his utter astonishment, Pia discovered that the negatives of his Shroud photographs were positives. Which

[Above (enlarge): "Secondo Pia's 1898 negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin. Image from Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne"[8].]

meant that the Shroud image was a photographic negative! This launched the modern scientific investigation of the Shroud. In 1900 Umberto was assassinated and was succeeded as King of Italy by Victor Emmanuel III. In 1902, from studying Pia's photographs, Yves Delage, professor of comparative anatomy at the Sorbonne University in Paris and an agnostic, delivered a scientific paper on the Shroud's image before the French Academy of Sciences, in which he concluded, on the basis of the "anatomical flawlessness of the wounds ... in [photographic] negative ... [that] ... The man of the Shroud was the Christ"[9]. In 1904, King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena's third child and only son, Prince Umberto II (1904–1983) was born. During World War I, King Victor Emmanuel III became alarmed at the prospect of the Shroud being damaged or destroyed in an air raid, so he had constructed a secret underground chamber two floors below ground level under Turin's Royal Palace. In May 1918 the Shroud was removed from the Royal Chapel where it had been since 1898, and locked in a strongbox in that underground chamber until the end of the war, when it was returned to the Royal Chapel.

Continued in "Locations of the Shroud: 1918-Present".

Notes
1. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, p.16. [return]
2. Oddone, A., "THE_HOLY_SHROUD_files/OSTENSION_ENGLISH 5.doc," Accademia Vis Vitalis, Turin. [return]
3. "File:BattleofTurin prince Anhalt.JPG," "Siege of Turin," Wikipedia, 5 April 2015. [return]
4. "Palazzo Reale, già Palazzo Ducale o Palazzo Novo Grande," MuseoTorino, 2010. [return]
5. "Palazzo Madama, Turin," Wikipedia, 27 March 2015. [return]
6. "April 12, 1842: Another royal wedding," "Shroud Exhibitions From 1578 to 1850," Shroud University.com, 19 March 2015. [return]
7. "Secondo Pia," Wikipedia, 3 May 2015. [return]
8. "Holy Face of Jesus," Wikipedia, 7 February 2015. [return]
9. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.30-31. [return]

References.
• Adams, F.O., 1982, "Sindon: A Layman's Guide to the Shroud of Turin," Synergy Books: Tempe AZ, p.45.
• Crispino, D.C., 1983, "Louis I, Duke of Savoy," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 7, June, pp.7-14, p.10.
• Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, pp.20-21.
• Jones, S.E., 2015, "Savoy Family Tree," Ancestry.com.au (members only)
• Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN, p.69.
• Scott, J.B., 2003, "Architecture for the Shroud: Relic and Ritual in Turin," University of Chicago Press: Chicago & London, pp.267-268.
• Sox, D., "Bringing the Shroud to the test," in Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud ," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK, p.41.
• Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition, p.264.
• Wilson, I., 1996, "A Calendar of the Shroud for the years 1509-1694," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 44, November/ December.
• Wilson, I., 1997, "A Calendar of the Shroud for the years 1694-1898," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 45 - June/July 1997.
• Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, pp.296-299.
• Wilson, 2010, pp.247, 271-273.

Posted: 2 May 2015. Updated: 30 November 2020.

The Shroud of Turin

Saturday, May 2, 2015