Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud? #4

Leonardo: The Man Behind The Shroud, ABC, 1 Jul 2007 ... Continued from part #3. Was ... the image burnt on by

[Above (enlarge): "The Shroud face in fluorescent light" (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, pl.8), showing that while its bloodstains fluoresce, i.e. they were formed from real blood, the image does not fluoresce, showing it is not a thermal scorch.]

pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture?

There are at least eight problems of the theory that the Shroud's "image [was] burnt on by "pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture":

1) There is no evidence of such a method ever being used in the past (including Leonardo da Vinci's day) to produce images of anything on cloth, let alone the Shroud's. As historian Ian Wilson, after reviewing the "concept has been that, instead of a body, a lifesize statue or relief was employed," observed, "No amount of poring through the art of the Middle Ages reveals anyone who worked even remotely in this way" (my emphasis):

"Another popular concept has been that, instead of a body, a lifesize statue or relief was employed. ... But can it be sustained? It is, for instance, very surprising that some unknown artist, in addition to all his other cleverness, should have displayed the subtlety and depth of anatomical knowledge displayed on the Shroud. No amount of poring through the art of the Middle Ages reveals anyone who worked even remotely in this way." (Wilson, 1986, pp.66,68).

2) The sculpture itself, and multiple copies of the Shroud made from it, should still be in existence but they are not. Once such a statue was created, then Shroud copies could have been be churned out from it like from a printing press. But since "Shroud copies of this level of artistry would have demanded a king's ransom," then "Where is the statue or the bas-relief that the artist used?" (my emphasis):

"An artist who was good enough to create an image as impressive as the Shroud's would surely have made many copies of it. Shroud copies of this level of artistry would have demanded a king's ransom. Where is the statue or the bas-relief that the artist used? It would have graced the finest cathedral and become a famous image in its own right. And, to repeat a point made before, this artist would have had to have forged an image that, would not have been appreciated for hundreds of years after his death, until the invention of photography and other modern analytical techniques." (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.109).

3) Heat scorches like those caused by the 1532 fire which burnt holes in the Shroud, fluoresce under ultraviolet light but the Shroud's images do not fluoresce. That is, if the Shroud was created "by wrapping the cloth around a heated metal statue," the scorches would "fluoresce under ultraviolet light" as the "scorches from the 1532 fire indeed do" but "the Shroud's ... body image does not" (my emphasis):

"Another popular concept has been that, instead of a body, a lifesize statue or relief was employed. Prior to 1978 there was considerable interest in the Shroud body image's similarity to the scorches from the 1532 fire. It was theorized that someone in the Middle Ages had produced the Shroud's delicate gradations by wrapping the cloth around a heated metal statue, the linen receiving scorches proportionately more intense according to the cloth's distance from any one part of the hot statue. Cogent as this idea might seem, in the light of the 1978 testing it has attracted enthusiasm from neither the STURP team nor Dr. McCrone. According to STURP members, scorches fluoresce under ultraviolet light, and while the Shroud's scorches from the 1532 fire indeed do so, the body image does not." (Wilson, 1986, pp.66,68).

4) Scorches of linen placed over hot statues form on both sides of the cloth, unlike the Shroud's image which is only on one side. Experiments by STURP physicists "Eric Jumper and John Jackson found that an image produced by having "heated a bronze statue ... and thrown a piece of linen over it ... would also be present on the back of the cloth" (my emphasis):

"Eric Jumper, another Air Force physicist, thought that if the Shroud had been scorched, it would have to have been a very short burst of high energy radiation. He and John Jackson ran some experiments in which they scorched pieces of linen with lasers. Within a short time, an image appeared on the reverse side of the cloth almost as dark as the one on the front. Jumper thought that this ruled out any plausible forgery using a scorch. A forger could have heated a bronze statue or a flat plate and thrown a piece of linen over it, but the image this process produced would also be present on the back of the cloth. By contrast, their experiments showed that the radiation process would have to be very quick and very intense in order to scorch only the topmost layer of the linen fibers. [Jumper, E., "Considerations of Molecular Diffusion and Radiation as an Image Formation Process on the Shroud," in Stevenson, K.E., ed., "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference on the Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY, 1977, p.187]" (Stevenson & Habermas, 1981, pp.71-72).

But the Shroud's "`... body' image areas are superficial in the extreme, lying only on the very top of the Shroud threads" (my emphasis):

"As Dr Adler continues to argue, [Adler, A.D., "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and Physical Characteristics', International Scientific Symposium, "The Turin Shroud, past, present and future," Villa Gualino, Turin, 2-5 March 2000] in the wake of Heller's death and having been granted a relatively recent direct viewing of the cloth to facilitate conservation recommendations, `the body' image areas are superficial in the extreme, lying only on the very top of the Shroud threads. They do not penetrate the cloth, nor do they exhibit any capillarity or absorptive properties. They are more brittle than their non-image counterparts, as if whatever formed them corroded them. They are uniform in coloration, they are not cemented together, neither are they `diffused' as they would be if they derived from some dye or stain. They do not `fluoresce' or reflect back any light. Most emphatically, they are not made by pigment contact." (Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara: London, 2000, p.74)

5) Such scorches on linen placed over a heated statue have "hot spots" where the linen touched the statue, but the Shroud has no such "hot spots":

"Another objection to the hot statue method lies in the inevitable creation of `hot spots' or well-defined regions of enhanced image density at points where the statue touched the cloth. Such spots would necessarily result from thermal conduction, [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin," Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol. 135, 1982, pp.3-49, p.28] yet no such regions are present on the Shroud body image. ... the entire image contains the same density of coloration." (Antonacci, M., "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY, 2000, p.79)

6) Scorches on linen placed over hot statues are not three-dimensional, unlike the Shroud's image which is:

"John Jackson pointed out another problem with various theories of image formation. Employing sophisticated mathematical analysis, he showed that no reasonable physical mechanism could produce an image which was both three-dimensional and highly detailed. To achieve clarity, three-dimensionality had to be sacrificed. To produce an image that contained three dimensional data, the image would not have been as detailed as the Shroud image is. Jackson thought his findings made it unlikely that the Shroud image was formed by some natural process involving diffusion of chemicals. He also said that no simple scorch caused by exposing the cloth to thermal radiation could not have produced a clear three-dimensional image either. However, Jackson said a scorch was still a possible explanation for the image because it could have been caused in some way other than by thermal radiation. [Jackson, J., "Problem of Resolution Posed by the Existence of a Three-Dimensional Image on the Shroud," in Stevenson, 1977, pp. 223-33]" (Stevenson,& Habermas, 1981, p.72. Emphasis original).

Indeed, Jackson showed mathematically in 1982, that "the three-dimensional effect is the Waterloo for all artistic theories" including those that posit "hot statues or hot bas-reliefs" (my emphasis):

"But as Dr. Jackson demonstrated, the Shroud image is three-dimensionally `consistent with a body shape covered with a naturally draping cloth and which can be derived from a single, global mapping function relating image shading with distance between these two surfaces.' [Jackson, J.P. & Ercoline, W.R., "The Three-Dimensional Characteristics of the Shroud Image," IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society, October 1982, p.573] In short, though none of the Shroud opponents would willingly concede this point, the three-dimensional effect is the Waterloo for all artistic theories. That same effect has been scientifically demonstrated and subjected to the best peer review. And it still stands. Also, this same characteristic proves to be the acid test for all the image formation theories Dr. Jackson tried regardless of how well they met or failed to meet the other known Shroud image characteristics. A catalog of ruled-out theories includes the following: direct contact, diffusion, lab-induced radiation from a body shape, engraving, powdered bas-reliefs, electrostatic imaging, phosphorescent statues, hot statues or hot bas-reliefs." (Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., "The Shroud and the Controversy," Thomas Nelson: Nashville TN, 1990, pp.32-33).

The reason is that "A hot statue would produce ... heat [that] radiates the same in all directions" and "This type of uniform radiation could not produce the subtle cloth-drape distortions found on the Shroud" but "would ... produce a blurred image." Also, the "blood and serum marks also could not be reproduced with a draped hot statue" but "would undergo thermal degradation as a result of their contact with a hot surface" (my emphasis):

"Hot Statue Method Just as the heated bas-relief method cannot account for all the Shroud image characteristics, neither can the hot statue technique, which involves laying cloth over a full-size three-dimensional hot statue. A hot statue would produce an isotropic radiation source, which means the heat radiates the same in all directions. This type of uniform radiation could not produce the subtle cloth-drape distortions found on the Shroud because the distance information encoded onto the cloth would not be transferred along vertical, straight-line paths; [Jackson, J., "A Problem of Resolution Posed By The Existence of a Three Dimensional Image on the Shroud," 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.223-233] instead, the heat would travel in all directions and produce a blurred image. Thus the three-dimensional shading and high resolution of the Shroud image could not be encoded simultaneously if this image-forming method were used. [Jackson, personal communication, February 1, 1988] Furthermore, the hot statue technique would scorch the image into multiple layers of the linen's threads, which means the image could not be superficial and confined to only the topmost fibrils of the cloth. [Jumper, E.J., "Considerations of Molecular Diffusion and Radiation as an Image Formation Process on the Shroud," in Stevenson, Ibid., pp.182-188]." (Antonacci, 2000, pp.78-79. Emphasis original).

7) Since the blood was on the cloth before the image was formed, contact with a hot statue would thermally degrade it, but the Shroud's blood is not. But, "If the images were there before the blood, and if we removed the blood, we could expect to see straw-yellow image fibers," however "When all the blood and protein were gone, the underlying fibrils were not straw-yellow; they were ordinary background fibrils" (my emphasis):

"Our hypothetical artist obviously must have used blood - both pre-mortem and post-mortem. And he had to paint with serum albumin alongside the edges of the scourge marks. Since serum albumin is visible only under ultraviolet, not white light, he had to paint with an invisible medium. If an artist had painted the Shroud, the blood must have been put on after the images. We decided to check that point. We took some blood- and serum-covered fibrils from a body image area. If the images were there before the blood, and if we removed the blood, we could expect to see straw-yellow image fibers. We prepared a mixture of enzymes that digest blood and its proteins. When all the blood and protein were gone, the underlying fibrils were not straw-yellow; they were ordinary background fibrils. This was strong evidence that the blood had gone on before the images. It suggested that blood had protected the linen from the image-making process. Surely this was a weird way to paint a picture." (Heller, J.H., "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 1983, pp.202-203).

This was confirmed by "Microscopic and ultraviolet examinations of the Shroud" which indicated "that the blood images were transferred to the cloth before the body image." Therefore, "If the body image were encoded through contact with a hot surface, thermal discoloration or degradation of bloodied fibrils would be evident" but "Microscopic study of the bloodstains on the Shroud ... reveals no thermal discoloration" of the image (my emphasis):

"Microscopic and ultraviolet examinations of the Shroud indicate that the blood images were transferred to the cloth before the body image. [Jumper, E.J., et al., "A Comprehensive Examination of the Various Stains and Images on the Shroud of Turin," in Lambert, J.B., ed., "Archaeological Chemistry, III," American Chemical Society: Washington DC, 1984, pp.447-476 & Jackson, J.P., et al., "Three Dimensional Characteristics of the Shroud Image," IEEE 1982 Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society, October 1982, pp.559-575] If the body image were encoded through contact with a hot surface, thermal discoloration or degradation of bloodied fibrils would be evident because the blood images would have been in direct contact with the bas-relief heated to temperatures high enough to scorch linen. Indeed, this effect appeared in the experimental testing of this technique [Jackson, Ibid.]. Microscopic study of the bloodstains on the Shroud, however, reveals no thermal discoloration or fusing (except in areas where the fire marks of 1532 intersected bloodstains). Furthermore, a heated bas-relief could not produce the many other aforementioned unique features of the blood on the Shroud." (Antonacci, 2000, p.79).

8) All attempts to produce a realistic copy of the Shroud by pressing a cloth against a heated sculpture have failed. Indeed "every attempt to experimentally create an acceptable image by the use of direct contact between a body or statue has failed," one reason being that it has been found by that method to be "impossible to create an acceptable impression of a three-dimensional object," which the Shroud is (see above), "on a two-dimensional surface" (my emphasis):

"Furthermore, every attempt to experimentally create an acceptable image by the use of direct contact between a body or statue has failed. It seemed to be impossible to create an acceptable impression of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface." (Stevenson & Habermas, 1981, p.69).

And in fact no "artist or forger has ever created an image showing all the characteristics of the image of the man of the Shroud," "even with the aid of modern technology," since "none of them are three-dimensional, superficial" (confined to the topmost surface fibrils)" and "non-directional" which the Shroud is (my emphasis):

"The basic fact remains: neither Joe Nickell nor any other artist or forger has ever created an image showing all the characteristics of the image of the man of the Shroud. For example, none of them are three-dimensional, superficial, or non-directional. Photographers claim that it is impossible to fake such a delicate image photographically. One cited by Wilcox wrote, `I've been involved in the invention of many complicated processes, and I can tell you that no one could have faked that image. No one could do it today with all the technology we have. It's a perfect negative. It has a photographic quality that is extremely precise.' [Leo Vala in Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," 1977, pp.130-131] In recent years a skeptical artist and photographer from Great Britain set out to deliberately duplicate the Shroud image using modern photographic techniques. He was convinced at the outset that the Turin cloth was a hoax. In the end, although his results were good enough to be used in the movie, `The Silent Witness,' his image is vastly inferior to the original. He concluded that it was virtually impossible for a human to have forged the Shroud image. In fact, the Shroud has never been successfully duplicated even with the aid of modern technology, despite some valiant attempts. In summary, it is virtually impossible that the Shroud image can be a forgery. ... The scientific testing of the Shroud uncovered no evidence for forgery. The technical demands of such a forgery appear far beyond the capabilities of a medieval artist, and modern-day attempts to duplicate the Shroud image have all failed." (Stevenson & Habermas, 1981, pp.109-110).

After "a comprehensive review of the comparative plausibility of every conceivable variety of image-forming process" by "Drs. Jackson and Jumper" they found that "although images were produced ... these fell far short of the photographic realism of the Shroud" (my emphasis):

"Back in 1978, arising from firsthand observations of the Shroud body image's similarity to some of the scorches from the 1532 fire, there was much discussion that the image might have been created by a scorch, perhaps from some searing flash of light at the very moment of Jesus' Resurrection. During the 1970s, an English author, Geoffrey Ashe, had created Shroud-like scorch pictures by applying a heated brass ornament to damp linen. But, as established by the 1978 ultraviolet fluorescence photography, there is a marked qualitative difference between the body image and the scorches. The 1532 fire scorches fluoresce red when irradiated with ultraviolet light, whereas the body images do not. ... Attempts to simulate some aspects of such a process have been made by Drs. Jackson and Jumper and colleagues in a comprehensive review of the comparative plausibility of every conceivable variety of image-forming process. But although images were produced, as in so many other experiments, these fell far short of the photographic realism of the Shroud." (Wilson, 1986, pp.125-126)

However, even if "back in the fourteenth century" some "mediaeval sculptor" created "a life-size, anatomically convincing ... statue of ... Jesus, made in metal, that someone managed to heat to just the right temperature and manipulate so that a fourteen-foot length of linen could be wrapped all round it," "he would then have had to paint in the wounds ... in the mode of bloodclot transfers - so realistically that they fooled dozens of twentieth-century doctors and pathologists." (as well as master time-travel to plant "the evidence we have seen for the existence of something like our Shroud well before the Middle Ages") (my emphasis)!:

"But while we are still considering the Shroud as the work of an artist, we should also take account of the idea that rather than using a paintbrush the mediaeval faker may cleverly have deployed some life-sized statue of Jesus in a manner so as to transfer its image to a piece of linen. Professor Hall, while generally shunning taking a serious interest in how the Shroud's image might have been made, told me during our July 1988 meeting in Oxford that the one idea he did favour was this so-called `hot statue' theory. The simple principle behind this is that a forger heated a metal statue of Jesus, then quickly wrapped a length of plain linen around it, thereby scorching the `body' image onto it rather in the manner of a branding iron. It is an idea that has circulated for some while, having been demonstrated as early as the 1970s by the English author Geoffrey Ashe [Ashe, G., "What Sort of Picture," Sindon, 1966, pp.15-19], who for his 'statue' simply heated a brass ornament (one used to decorate the trappings of horses) and applied it to a piece of linen he had dampened. Even though the effect, home-spun as it was, was far from totally convincing, it was actually rather more Shroud-like than anything we have seen from either McCrone or Craig and Bresee. Even so the `hot statue' theory suffers from the serious problem that it demands the existence, back in the fourteenth century, of a life-size, anatomically convincing and totally nude statue of a recumbent Jesus, made in metal, that someone managed to heat to just the right temperature and manipulate so that a fourteen-foot length of linen could be wrapped all round it. ... None the less even if we could accept that a mediaeval sculptor had created such a statue, in doing so he would then have had to paint in the wounds not with whole blood, but in the mode of bloodclot transfers -so realistically that they fooled dozens of twentieth-century doctors and pathologists. And this is aside from all his other accuracies and the evidence we have seen for the existence of something like our Shroud well before the Middle Ages. Further contradicting any such `scorch' theory is the fact that the STURP team's ultraviolet fluorescence photography of 1978 revealed that whereas the cloth's scorches from the 1532 fire fluoresce red when irradiated with ultraviolet light, the body images do not. This argues strongly against the Shroud's body image having been created in some conventional scorch-like manner." (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.203-204. Emphasis original).

And anyway Leonardo da Vinci was not as great a sculptor as he was a painter, with "A small group of generals' heads in marble and plaster ... linked with Leonardo" but of "inferior quality" and "two great sculptural projects ... not realized" (my emphasis):

"Leonardo worked as a sculptor from his youth on, as shown in his own statements and those of other sources. A small group of generals' heads in marble and plaster, works of Verrocchio's followers, are sometimes linked with Leonardo because a lovely drawing attributed to him that is on the same theme suggests such a connection. But the inferior quality of this group of sculpture rules out an attribution to the master. No trace has remained of the heads of women and children that, according to Vasari, Leonardo modeled in clay in his youth. The two great sculptural projects to which Leonardo devoted himself wholeheartedly were not realized ... " (Heydenreich, L.H., "Leonardo da Vinci: Sculpture," Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Accessed 4 July 2007).

Continued in part #5.

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Posted 21 July 2007. Updated 19 December 2025.

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"If I had known Stewart would need a profile of the man in the shroud, I would have brought along the photographs made by Leo Vala, a photographer of British royalty and a pioneer in the development of the 3D visual process and cinemascope movie screens. By manipulating light through photo transparencies, he produced an image on a normal screen that enabled sculptors to make a three-dimensional model which could then be photographed in profile or indeed from any other angle. In perfecting the process Vala had selected the shroud face as a subject `because it's such a beautiful image.' After publishing the results of his experimentation in the March 8, 1967 issue of Amateur Photographer, he became an outspoken critic of anyone who thought the image could have been produced by human hands either through artistry or technology. `I've been involved in the invention of many complicated visual processes, and I can tell you that no one could have faked that image. No one could do it today with all the technology we have. It's a perfect negative. It has a photographic quality that is extremely precise.'" (Wilcox, R.K., "Shroud," Macmillan: New York NY, 1977, pp.130-131)

Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud? #3

See also my "Medieval photography: Nicholas Allen" post of 7 August 2016.

Leonardo: The Man Behind The Shroud, ABC, 1 Jul 2007 ... Continued from part #2. Was it created photographically,

[Above: How a medieval forger supposedly created the Shroud of Turin, "photographically, in a camera obscura," based on a model by Prof. Nicholas Allen: Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud," 1998, p.214]

in a camera obscura, was the image burnt on by pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture? I responded to "Was it created photographically" in general at the end of part #2. As for "Was it created ... in a camera obscura?" i.e. as proposed by Prof. Nicholas Allen (see above). The short answer is no, because the "camera obscura" was the "ancestor of the photographic camera" (my emphasis):

"camera obscura ... ancestor of the photographic camera. The Latin name means `dark chamber,' and the earliest versions, dating to antiquity, consisted of small darkened rooms with light admitted through a single tiny hole. The result was that an inverted image of the outside scene was cast on the opposite wall, which was usually whitened. For centuries the technique was used for viewing eclipses of the Sun without endangering the eyes and, by the 16th century, as an aid to drawing; the subject was posed outside and the image reflected on a piece of drawing paper for the artist to trace. Portable versions were built, followed by smaller and even pocket models; the interior of the box was painted black and the image reflected by an angled mirror so that it could be viewed right side up. The introduction of a light-sensitive plate by J.-N. Niepce created photography." ("camera obscura," Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Accessed 12 July 2007)

that is, "The forerunner of the camera" (my emphasis):

"photography, history of Antecedents ... The forerunner of the camera was the camera obscura, a dark chamber or room with a hole (later a lens) in one wall, through which images of objects outside the room were projected on the opposite wall. The principle was probably known to the Chinese and to ancient Greeks such as Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. Late in the 16th century, the Italian scientist and writer Giambattista della Porta demonstrated and described in detail the use of a camera obscura with a lens. While artists in subsequent centuries commonly used variations on the camera obscura to create images they could trace, the results from these devices depended on the artist's drawing skills, and so scientists continued to search for a method to reproduce images completely mechanically. In 1727 the German professor of anatomy Johann Heinrich Schulze proved that the darkening of silver salts, a phenomenon known since the 16th century and possibly earlier, was caused by light and not heat. He demonstrated the fact by using sunlight to record words on the salts, but he made no attempt to preserve the images permanently. His discovery, in combination with the camera obscura, provided the basic technology necessary for photography. It was not until the early 19th century, however, that photography actually came into being." ("photography, history of: antecedents," Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Accessed 12 July 2007)

not the photographic camera itself.

As the above Wikipedia entries state, "It was not until the early 19th century" with "The introduction of a light-sensitive plate by J.-N. Niepce" (in 1824, i.e. over 300 years after Leonardo's death) that "photography actually came into being" (my emphasis)!

Now as for Allen's experiment to test his medieval photograph theory, Brendan Whiting summarised it as follows:

"The Camera-Obscura Theory In 1995 a theory that the Shroud image might have been created through the application of an early, crude form of photography known as camera-obscura - supposed to have been utilised in the Middle Ages - was tested by Professor Nicholas Allen, a dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at the Port Elizabeth Technikon in South Africa [Allen, N., "Verification of the nature and causes of the photo-negative images on the Shroud of Lirey-Chambery-Turin," De Arte, April 1995, pp.31-34]. Allen knew that the image on the Shroud was not a painting, and was aware that in medieval Europe, Italy in particular, there existed knowledge of the use of quartz for making lenses for magnification purposes. He was also aware that at that time there was knowledge of silver salts, which had the properties required for converting into light-sensitive chemicals. To test his theory Allen constructed a camera obscura in the form of a room that was totally dark except for an aperture in the front wall, in which he set a type of rock-crystal lens that he believed could have existed in the Middle Ages. He soaked a shroud-like cloth in light-sensitive silver nitrate, folded it in half across the middle, and installed it vertically in the middle of the room, some 5 metres from the aperture, while it was closed. For the subject to be `photographed' he made a plaster cast from a naked and bearded male life-model who had stood in a death-like pose, as similar as possible to that of the man of the Shroud. He suspended the plaster cast vertically in full sunlight, about 5 metres in front of the aperture outside the room, having precalculated that at this distance from the lens the subject's image would be exposed on the light-sensitive cloth life-size and upside-down. He opened the aperture and kept it open for several days, during which the plaster cast remained exposed to sunlight. The result was a `negative' exposure of the front of the cast-image on the cloth. To produce a double image, front and back, he repeated the process, closing the aperture, turning both the plaster cast and the folded cloth around, then opening the aperture for several more days. To complete his experiment he had the cloth washed in a solution of ammonia salts to remove the silver salts, thus `fixing' the exposures. The entire experiment was conducted according to his hypothesis that he had replicated a form of photography believed to have been known in some scientific circles in medieval Europe." (Whiting, B., "The Shroud Story," Harbour Publishing: Strathfield NSW, Australia, 2006, pp.158-160. Emphasis original).

But artist-physicist Isabel Piczek pointed out that, amongst other things: 1) "the camera obscura ... was not a primitive photo camera, but a device used by artists to aid in representing buildings and open space in perspective"; 2) "at the time the [photo]chemical properties of silver nitrate were unknown"; 3) "there was no knowledge of ... the properties of light employing a bi-convex, finely ground quartz lens"; and 4) "a real corpse would have been required, and would have to hang in the sun for fourteen days" but "the image on the Shroud is of a corpse in a state of rigor mortis and ... `corpses do not maintain rigor mortis" for "fourteen days in the sun" (my emphasis):

"The idea that the Shroud is a primitive photograph was further explored by Nicholas Allen, dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at Port Elizabeth Technikon, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Allen proposed that the Shroud could have been created in the fourteenth century by an artist who used: (1) rock crystal; (2) silver salts; and (3) salt of ammonia (found in urine), all of which would have been available at the time. In his article entitled `Verification of the Nature and Causes of the Photo-negative Images on the Shroud of Lirey-Chambery-Turin' he argued that the Shroud `could have been' produced by a form of primitive photography. This `hypothetical photographic technique,' Allen insisted `... is the only plausible explanation for the image formation on the Shroud ... and indicates that people in the late thirteenth and fourteenth century were indeed privy to a photographic technology which was previously thought to be unknown.' The South-African scholar constructed a device known as a camera obscura. The size of a typical living room, it was built so that no light could get in except through a small opening for a rock crystal lens. He closed this opening and prepared a cloth made to the same dimensions of the Shroud, and, folding it once across its width and soaking it in light-sensitive silver nitrate, hung it up inside the camera obscura fifteen feet from the lens. When the cloth dried it became a sort of unexposed film. Next he made a plastic cast of a living man of roughly the same size and shape of the man of the Shroud. Allen then suspended the statue in the sunlight fifteen feet in front of the lens. His object was to project the image of the statue through the lens onto the cloth. After several days the reflection of the statue imprinted a negative onto the cloth. Allen then closed his improvised shutter and turned the statue around so that the back faced the lens, which he opened for several more days in order to create a front and back image similar to that of the Shroud. So that the negative would not fade from exposure to light, Allen washed it in a solution of ammonia salts. Although the process devised by Professor Allen produced an image with many characteristics of that of the Shroud of Turin, some have questioned whether it really could have been carried out in the Middle Ages. ... Isabel Piczek rejected Allen's hypothesis. First of all, she argued, the camera obscura that figured prominently in both the theories of Allen and of Picknett and Prince was not a primitive photo camera, but a device used by artists to aid in representing buildings and open space in perspective. Although it was used by the Greeks and the Romans, it was not used in the Middle Ages. While Allen argued that all the materials needed for making a photograph were available by the thirteenth century, Piczek pointed out that at the time the chemical properties of silver nitrate were unknown, and there was no knowledge of optics `or the properties of light employing a bi-convex, finely ground quartz lens.' The medieval photographer would have had to know the properties of ultraviolet radiation `before electromagnetism was known at all' and he would have had to known how to stabilize his image through the use of ammonia. Since it was unlikely that medieval technicians could produce a body cast of the quality Allen devised, a real corpse would have been required, and would have to hang in the sun for fourteen days. Piczek pointed out that the image on the Shroud is of a corpse in a state of rigor mortis and the fact is that `corpses do not maintain rigor mortis [and] cannot hang fourteen days in the sun, or else you would not care to see what the camera obscura would bring in onto your canvas,' [Piczek, I., "Alice in Wonderland and the Shroud of Turin?," Holy Shroud Seminar Retreat at Mount Esopus, New York, August 24, 1996, pp. 8-9] (Ruffin, C.B., "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, 1999, pp.140-142)

In fact "it was not until 1556" (i.e. 37 years after Leonardo's death) "that the light sensitive nature of silver nitrate was rediscovered" by Georg Fabricius (1516-1571) and even then "he found this discovery of little interest." It was not until 1725 (i.e. 206 years after Leonardo's death) that "Johann Heinrich Schulze proved that the darkening of silver salts ... was caused by light and not heat":

"Despite the translation of much of Geber's ["the Arab alchemist Jabir Ibn Haiyan ... (ca721-803CE)"] work, it was not until 1556 that the light sensitive nature of silver nitrate was rediscovered. Georg Fabricius (1516-1571) from Chemnitz added salt to silver nitrate solution, forming a white solid, silver chloride, which went black in sunlight. However because of his theoretical ideas he found this discovery of little interest. Fabricus's researches were wide ranging: as well as being an alchemist, he was a poet, teacher, historian and archaeologist, and was probably best known for his popular guide-book to the antiquities of Rome. Fifty years later in 1614, Angelo Sala (1576-1637), an Italian Calvinist who left Italy to avoid religious persecution to settle first in the Low Countries and later Hamburg, published a paper including his work with powdered silver nitrate. He found this turned black on exposure to the sun, although he did not make it clear whether this was due to the light or the heat of the rays. He also found that it stained paper black if in contact with it. .... Robert Boyle (1627-91) also noted the blackening of silver nitrate on exposure in 1667, but he put it down to the action of air on the material. Although one of the most eminent scientists of the time he apparently jumped to an incorrect conclusion without examining the evidence or carrying out suitable experiments. Further work on the light-sensitivity of silver salts was carried out in 1693-1694 by German chemist Wilhelm Homberg (1652-1715). One of his experiments involved dipping bone in silver nitrate solution; it then darkened in sunlight. Homberg showed the darkening was due to the rays of the sun, but, like Sala, failed to make clear whether it was a result of their light or heat. It was not until the work of Johann Heinrich Schulze in 1725 that this was sorted out, (although there were further confusions over the next 75 years.) Schulze noticed the effect (using chalk dipped in silver nitrate and nitric acid) and tried to reproduce it with heat. When these experiment failed he turned to the effect of light, and found that this produced the darkening. Schulze carried out a number of lecture demonstrations using card with cut shapes wrapped around silver nitrate bottles and produced darkening giving a crude impression of these shapes in the solution." ("Photo History - Finding the chemistry, Part 2: Alchemy to Chemistry," About.com)

Indeed, it was not until "about 1795" (i.e. 276 years after Leonardo's death) that "The fantastic possibility of producing images by the action of light ... occurred to anyone as a serious thought" when "Thomas Wedgwood ... narrowly missed becoming the inventor of photography" and so it was not until "1816" that "Joseph Nicephore Niepce ... set out to take pictures from

[Left: Nicéphore Niépce's earliest surviving photograph, c. 1826, Wikipedia]

nature using a camera and paper sensitized with silver chloride" but even then he had only "limited success almost immediately ... because the image tones were ... negative ... and he could not make the image permanent" but "At last, in 1826" (i.e. 297 years after Leonardo's death) "he succeeded" and produced "The world's first permanent camera image" (my emphasis):

"In 1777 Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the Swedish chemist, investigated the properties of silver chloride and made some interesting discoveries. Like Schulze, he established that the blackening effect on his silver salt was due to light, not heat. He also proved that the black material was metallic silver and he noted that ammonia, which was known to dissolve silver chloride, did not affect the blackened silver. If Scheele had realized the importance of this last discovery, he could very well have become the inventor of photography because by this time the essential processes were known. Silver chloride could be reduced to black metallic silver by exposure to light; ammonia could preserve the image by dissolving the silver chloride without harming the image tones; and, of course, the camera was still waiting in the wings. But Scheele's investigations were only noted in passing. The world was not yet ready for photography. The fantastic possibility of producing images by the action of light had simply not occurred to anyone as a serious thought. This essential idea finally came to Thomas Wedgwood, the youngest son of the famous potter, Josiah. In addition to being an outstanding craftsman and artist, Josiah was a brilliant and respected member of the English scientific community. Thomas was familiar with the camera obscura because his father had used it as an aid in drawing scenes for use on his pottery. The Wedgwood family also owned the notebooks of William Lewis, who in 1763 had described Schulze's and his own experiments with the silver compounds. These circumstances and natural curiosity prompted young Thomas to begin experiments of his own, probably about 1795. Thomas Wedgwood narrowly missed becoming the inventor of photography for two reasons. He gave up attempts to make pictures with the camera obscura (his exposures were not sufficient), and he was unable to fix the silver images he did produce by direct printing. In France, meanwhile, Joseph Nicephore Niepce and his son Isidore were busy experimenting with lithography at the family estate near Chalon. ... Nicephore began to explore light sensitive varnishes, hoping to find a coating for the stones that would record the drawings by exposure to light. He must have made some progress because in 1816 he set out to take pictures from nature using a camera and paper sensitized with silver chloride. Niepce had limited success almost immediately, but he was displeased because the image tones were reversed from nature (they were negative) and he could not make the image permanent. He realized that the tonal reversal was an inherent part of the silver process and tried to produce a positive print by reprinting one of his negatives, but his attempts were unsuccessful. He also found that nitric acid helped to preserve the image for a while, but it only postponed disaster and could not prevent it. He began to experiment with other materials. Finally, in 1822 he produced a copy of an engraving by exposing through the original onto a glass plate coated with bitumen of Judea, a type of asphalt. Light hardens this material, so when Niepce washed his exposed plate with the usual solvents, only the unexposed portions were floated away, leaving the image in permanent lines. He called his process heliography (sun writing). He made a number of similar heliographs in the next few years and continued his efforts to record a camera image. At last, in 1826, he succeeded. The world's first permanent camera image shows the view from Niepce's second floor window and is little more than an impression. It is a bitumen image on pewter, showing only masses of light and dark tones. The exposure supposedly took about eight hours." (Hammerstingl, W., "The beginnings of Photography," 1999)

So all photographic theories of explaining the Shroud's existence in the 14th century (or even the 15th century) fail by being hopelessly anachronistic in requiring that someone (e.g. Leonardo) in the Middle Ages invented the whole process of photography, from: 1) discovering that silver nitrate was light-sensitive; 2) discovering how to fix silver nitrate images; 3) taking the 4.3 x 1.1 metre photograph of a man (or model) crucified exactly as Jesus was (arguably the greatest photograph ever taken!); 4) recording that image on linen covered with silver nitrate; but not 5) knowing how to convert the negative image to a positive; and then 6) not doing any other photographs; nor 7) telling anyone else; or 8) writing down for posterity his great discovery!

Not to mention the `minor' matter that the Shroud of Turin is a colour, namely sepia, whereas Allen's image obtained from silver nitrate is necessarily black and white!

[Above: Black and white Shroud `replica' produced by Prof. Nicholas Allen (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud," 1998, plate 47c) compared with actual sepia coloured Shroud (Examine The Shroud of Turin)]

And as Wilson pointed out, even if "someone of the Middle Ages having successfully mastered such an advanced degree of photographic expertise ... this would have been directed solely to producing a `negative' image that to any mediaeval observer could only have seemed most unconvincing" since the "`positive' photograph would still have been inaccessible to ... even the `photographer' who created it, for another five hundred years" (my emphasis):

"Furthermore, it cannot be stressed enough that even in the unlikely event of someone of the Middle Ages having successfully mastered such an advanced degree of photographic expertise - only then to lose it again this would have been directed solely to producing a `negative' image that to any mediaeval observer could only have seemed most unconvincing. The so compelling hidden `positive' photograph would still have been inaccessible to anyone, even the `photographer' who created it, for another five hundred years." (Wilson, 1998, p.217).

The final nail in the coffin of Allen's medieval camera obscura photograph theory (and indeed to all such medieval photograph theories) is that it requires the artist/photographer to "produce subtle photographic details, like scourge wounds and bloodstains, all from a total distance of 10 metres." Allen tried to get around this by claiming that, "The stigmata and other areas of the blood of the Shroud were probably added with the aid of a paintbrush and real blood, after the negative image had been obtained" but in fact "there are no signs of any body image beneath the bloodstains, meaning that the blood wounds penetrated the fibres before the image appeared on the cloth" (my emphasis):

"The result was images which bore a number of similarities to the Shroud image when viewed by the naked eye. The cloth had developed a straw-yellow discoloration of its surface fibrils, and faint evidence of an image of the plaster-cast was apparent when the cloth was viewed from about 2 metres distance. The most telling effect became evident when he photographed his cloth with a modern camera, using black-and-white film, and examined the negative. It revealed a `positive' image of the subject. While his experiment might have supported his conclusion, `that people in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century were privy to a photographic technology which was previously thought to be unknown before the beginning of the nineteenth century' [Allen, Ibid., p.34], it would be an extreme interpretation of his work for him or anyone to claim that the Shroud images could have been created in a similar way. Not only would it have required the procurement of a Jewish male corpse, crucified in the same way as Jesus, with the nail and lance wounds, and for it to be suspended for several days in sunshine, facing the aperture, then for several days more with its back facing the aperture, without displaying any sign of decay, and also produce subtle photographic details, like scourge wounds and bloodstains, all from a total distance of 10 metres. To have fulfilled such onerous requirements is beyond belief. Yet, in attempting to dispel disbelief that the Shroud image could have been formed in this way Allen wrote: `The stigmata and other areas of the blood of the Shroud were probably added with the aid of a paintbrush and real blood, after the negative image had been obtained'. This was not possible, for the simple reason that scientists have discovered there are no signs of any body image beneath the bloodstains, meaning that the blood wounds penetrated the fibres before the image appeared on the cloth. With all photography the choice of film and the purity of the developing emulsions define the degree of sharpness and clarity of a photographic image. The fact that no museum or library in the world possesses a medieval camera-obscura photograph or even a crude pre-1800 photograph is sufficient evidence that no one had produced one before the invention of photography." (Whiting, 2006, pp.160-161).

Therefore, as Ian Wilson pointed out, because "to date there has been only one genuinely satisfying, albeit still only partial, replication of the Shroud's image, that by Professor Nicholas Allen" but that demands so much ingenuity and advanced photographic knowledge on the part of someone of the Middle Ages that it may actually" (and in fact does) "represent rather better evidence for the Shroud's authenticity than for its forgery" (my emphasis)!:

"As for the fundamental questions for anyone adopting the forgery hypothesis - for example: `Who forged such an extraordinary image?' 'How did he do so without betraying any obvious sign of his artifice?' 'How did he manage to get so much right medically, historically and culturally?' - if you ask yourself whether Sox, or any of the other current detractors, from McCrone and Hall to Picknett and Prince, has yet offered any genuinely satisfying answers, the response has to be no. Indeed, if anyone had come up with a convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was forged, they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter would rally. Yet so far this has not even begun to happen. Realistically, to date there has been only one genuinely satisfying, albeit still only partial, replication of the Shroud's image, that by Professor Nicholas Allen. And that demands so much ingenuity and advanced photographic knowledge on the part of someone of the Middle Ages that it may actually represent rather better evidence for the Shroud's authenticity than for its forgery." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.235).

To be continued in part #4 with my response to: "Was ... the image burnt on by pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture?"

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Posted: 13 July 2007. Updated: 20 August 2021.

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"The figures on the Shroud, in fact, are not paintings at all. As already stated, they are negative images; and the idea of a negative became known only through the invention of photography in the 19th Century. No artist of any earlier period, therefore, (certainly none of the 14th Century and, above all, none before the 5th), could have conceived the idea of painting a negative. The figures, moreover, are very exact negatives. When they are photographed, they appear on the film with the natural proportions of a full-grown man, with a true perspective, with a noble, impressive countenance, and with a minute fidelity to nature even in minor details. Each one of these points involves principles of science and of art which were unknown or poorly grasped until comparatively modern times. It is hard enough to carry out these principles in an ordinary positive painting, in which the lights and shades have their normal values. On the Shroud, they are perfectly illustrated with the lights and shades reversed, though it takes a photograph to reveal the fact. Even today no artist can paint so exact a negative. No artist, in fact, has yet succeeded in making an exact copy of the negative figures on the Shroud, though competent artists have made the attempt." (Vignon, P., "The problem of the Holy Shroud," Scientific American, Vol. 156, 1937, pp.162-164, p.162)

Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud? #2

Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud? #2

Leonardo: The Man Behind The Shroud, ABC, 1 Jul 2007 ... Continued from part #1 ... The image of Christ, believers say,

[Above: Leonardo da Vinci, Self-Portrait, c. 1512, Red chalk, 33.3 x 21.3 cm (13 1/8 x 8 3/8 in), Biblioteca Reale, Turin: The Artchive]

was burned into the cloth fibres by the intense heat of resurrection. It was not necessarily "heat" but the only viable explanation is some type of radiation caused by the resurrection of Jesus.

Firstly, as leading sindonologist historian Ian Wilson reported in 1978, "Spectroscopically `body,' `blood,' and burn-mark features all recorded the same intensity" which means that "the Shroud image had pronounced similarities to a scorch" (my emphasis):

"At Albuquerque spectroscopy's relevance was brilliantly demonstrated by Dr. John Jackson. He took an ordinary color photograph of the Shroud supplied to him by Father Otterbein and had this color-scanned in Don Lynn's laboratory to isolate the simple proportions of blue, red, and green present in the different physical features of the image. He gave all these features-the burn marks, the body images, the blood, the hair, etc., different symbols and plotted on a graph their different color intensities compared with their neutral densities as shown up by micro-densitometer scanning. The result was remarkable. Spectroscopically `body,' `blood,' and burn-mark features all recorded the same intensity. Although Jackson was the first to acknowledge that the data he was dealing with were far from ideal, the implication for future research was self-evident-the Shroud image had pronounced similarities to a scorch. The obvious question is how a genuine dead body, cold in the tomb, could produce some kind of burning or radiance sufficient to scorch cloth, acting in so controlled a manner that it dissolved and fused blood flows onto the cloth, yet created at the same time the perfect impression of a human body? The concept is mind-boggling. Yet, if the evidence already presented for the Shroud's authenticity is to be believed, something along these lines appears to be the only explanation." (Wilson, I., "The Turin Shroud," Book Club Associates: London, 1978, pp.208-209. Emphasis original).

But then, as Wilson noted above, "The obvious question is how a genuine dead body, cold in the tomb, could produce some kind of burning or radiance sufficient to scorch cloth ...Yet ... something along these lines appears to be the only explanation" (my emphasis).

That "some kind of force" ("rather than a substance") seems to have been responsible for the image ... is suggested by the" fact "that the image affected only the topmost surface of the fibers ...and was insoluble and resistant to acids" and "Whatever formed the image was powerful enough to project it onto the linen from a distance of up to four centimeters" (my emphasis):

"Nevertheless the impression is inescapable that, rather than a substance, some kind of force seems to have been responsible for the image. This is suggested by the information in the 1973 commission's report that the image affected only the topmost surface of the fibers, and whatever created it had neither seeped nor penetrated the fibers and was insoluble and resistant to acids. Whatever formed the image was powerful enough to project it onto the linen from a distance of up to four centimeters (according to jumper and Jackson), yet gentle enough not to cause distortion in areas where there would have been direct contact. This factor is particularly obvious on the dorsal image, where the cloth would have received the full weight of the body." (Wilson, 1978, pp.209-210).

Further, "The concept of a force is implicit from the manner in ... the image-forming process" showing "no discrimination between registering the body surface, the hair, the blood, and even inanimate objects-i.e., the two coins ... All would seem to have been imprinted on the cloth with the same even intensity" (my emphasis):

"The concept of a force is implicit from the manner in which the image seems to have been created with a marked upward/downward directionality, without any diffusion, and leaving no imprint of the sides of the body or the top of the head. Also the image-forming process seems to have shown no discrimination between registering the body surface, the hair, the blood, and even inanimate objects-i.e., the two coins discovered by Jackson and Jumper. All would seem to have been imprinted on the cloth with the same even intensity, and with only the most minor color variation in the case of the blood." (Wilson, 1978, p.210).

Since "any diffusion process"( such as painting or vapograph) "would have involved penetration of the fibers ... whatever created the image" (and it may have been, but not necessarily was, "some form of thermonuclear flash") must have been some extremely high intensity, short duration burst, acting evenly upward and downward" in "a mere millisecond of time"(my emphasis):

"The idea, then, of some form of thermonuclear flash being the force in question is obviously more than idle speculation. Dr. jumper certainly treated it seriously, arguing that, as any diffusion process would have involved penetration of the fibers, and as any remotely lingering laser beam would have caused destruction, whatever created the image must have been some extremely high intensity, short duration burst, acting evenly upward and downward. Thermal chemist Ray Rogers of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, who attended the conference, said very much the same thing, using the words `flash photolysis,' and speaking of a mere millisecond of time." (Wilson, 1978, p.210).

Although he wrote it in 1978, nearly 30 years ago, Wilson's scenario of "the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab" when "Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the ... image ... of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection":

"Even from the limited available information, a hypothetical glimpse of the power operating at the moment of creation of the Shroud's image may be ventured. In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, unwashed, covered in blood, on a stone slab. Suddenly, there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the blood dematerializes, dissolved perhaps by the flash, while its image and that of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth, preserving for posterity a literal `snapshot' of the Resurrection." (Wilson, 1978, p.210)

still remains as the only viable explanation.

That is evident in that none of the Shroud's anti-authenticity "detractors" including "Picknett and Prince" has yet offered any ... convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was forged" since if they had, "they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter would rally" but "so far this has not even begun to happen" (my emphasis):

"As for the fundamental questions for anyone adopting the forgery hypothesis - for example: `Who forged such an extraordinary image?' 'How did he do so without betraying any obvious sign of his artifice?' 'How did he manage to get so much right medically, historically and culturally?' - if you ask yourself whether Sox, or any of the other current detractors, from McCrone and Hall to Picknett and Prince, has yet offered any genuinely satisfying answers, the response has to be no. Indeed, if anyone had come up with a convincing solution as to how and by whom the Shroud was forged, they would inevitably have created a consensus around which everyone sceptical on the matter would rally. Yet so far this has not even begun to happen. Realistically, to date there has been only one genuinely satisfying, albeit still only partial, replication of the Shroud's image, that by Professor Nicholas Allen. And that demands so much ingenuity and advanced photographic knowledge on the part of someone of the Middle Ages that it may actually represent rather better evidence for the Shroud's authenticity than for its forgery." (Wilson, 1998, p.235).

I will respond to Prof. Allen's medieval photography theory in my next post, part #3.

Behind the Cathedral that holds the Shroud, the Library of Palazzo Reale contains the self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. See above and the comparison between it and the face of the Man on the Shroud. Personally the two images have little in common. For starters, unlike the Man on the Shroud, Leonardo is bald on top and has long flowing hair and beard. And as Ian Wilson asks "Of Picknett's and Prince's argument that Leonardo used his own face for the Shroud, one can only wonder whether" he "arranged to have his face specially beaten up to match the man of the Shroud's injuries?":

"Of Picknett's and Prince's argument that Leonardo used his own face for the Shroud, one can only wonder whether the notoriously vain `Maestro', as they refer to him, arranged to have his face specially beaten up to match the man of the Shroud's injuries? Of their claim that the absence of wine on the table of his Last Supper shows Leonardo's anti-Christian leanings, the error of this can readily be seen in Gianpetrino's excellent early copy of this painting, currently on display at Magdalen College, Oxford, in which enough liberally charged wine tumblers for everyone present appear on the table ... Despite the atrocious condition of Leonardo's original painting they can be distinguished readily enough even on this, Picknett's and Prince's mistake seemingly being due to the poor photographs they consulted. As for Pope Innocent VIII's commissioning the Shroud as a cynical publicity exercise, the very suggestion of this is ludicrous, given that the Shroud, of very low-grade credibility in that pope's time, was never even remotely under his control and, for any publicity, cynical or otherwise, he had far better things available to him in Rome." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.212).

As for "Leonardo's" allegedly "anti-Christian leanings," I will address that in part #4 under the claim that da Vinci was a "heretic."

What is the link between these two remarkable images? None (as we saw in part #1)!

This extraordinary film will weave together different threads of this puzzle. I regret that I missed this documentary. Hopefully it will be repeated eventually.

It explains the enormous significance of the Shroud, and the controversy over its authenticity that has raged in recent years following attempts at scientific study. If the Shroud really is the crucified image of Jesus Christ at the very moment of His resurrection (which seems to be the only viable explanation), then it indeed has enormous significance!

And it asks the question: if it is a fake, who on earth would have had the ability to create it? - for the image on the Shroud is no ordinary painting. Agreed. And if: 1) no one "had the ability to create it" (not even Leonardo da Vinci); or 2) if only Leonardo did have "the ability to create it," but in fact he never did (i.e apart from da Vinci never having the opportunity, why would he want to commit a major art fraud, risking his reputation and even his life, anonymously so he would never get the credit, to just be a copyist of another's work?-see part #1), then, on the principle that, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" (see `tagline' quote) the Shroud must have been created by Someone not "on earth"!

Experts on the Shroud, on renaissance art, image analysis, forensic science, and crucifixion argue how this strange and mysterious image might have been created - or how it could not have been. Again, not having seen the show, I don't know if they had any "Experts on the Shroud" who argued the pro-authenticity case, but I doubt it.

Was it created photographically, in a camera obscura, was the image burnt on by pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture? No, because "photography was not invented until" the 1800s, "well over four centuries after the very latest date ascribed to the Shroud by radiocarbon dating," i.e. 1390 " (my emphasis):

"If the Shroud really does date from the fourteenth century, yet has neither been painted by a cunning artist, nor `imprinted' using a real-life crucified human body, there does remain one further option: that someone even as long ago as the Middle Ages created it by some photographic means. At first sight this may well seem the most improbable. After all, photography as we know it was not invented until well over four centuries after the very latest date ascribed to the Shroud by radiocarbon dating. And even then its development was a long-drawn-out process, beginning with Thomas Wedgwood's first use of light-sensitive chemicals to copy silhouette images in 1802, then Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's making of the first permanent pictures in 1814, then Louis Jacques Daguerre's introduction of his daguerreotype process in 1839, then Scott Archer's method using light-sensitive silver salts in a collodium film on a glass plate launched in 1851. And even after all that it took another thirty-three years before George Eastman managed to patent the first successful roll film." (Wilson, 1998, p.210).

which was three centuries after Leonardo da Vinci's death in 1519!

I will respond to the "camera obscura" in my next post, part #3, and "the image burnt on by pressing the cloth against a heated sculpture" theories in part #4.

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Posted 8 July 2007. Updated 25 October 2025.

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"`How came he, then?' I reiterated. `The door is locked, the window is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?' The grate is much too small,' he answered. `I had already considered that possibility.' `How then?' I persisted. `You will not apply my precept,' he said, shaking his head. `How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?' `He came through the hole in the roof,' I cried. `Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches to the room above, - the secret room in which the treasure was found.'" (Doyle, A.C., "The Sign of Four," Penguin: London, 2001, pp.42-43. Emphasis original)

Leonardo: The Man Behind the Shroud? #1

Leonardo: The Man Behind The Shroud, ABC, 1 Jul 2007 ... This was on TV last Sunday night, but I did not see the notice for it until Monday morning!

[Above (enlarge): Comparison between Leonardo's self-portrait and the face of the man of the Shroud]

The Shroud of Turin: sacred Christian relic or clever fake? This backhanded compliment makes Walsh's point (which was my `tagline' quote at the end of my introductory post) that:

"The Shroud of Turin is either the most awesome and instructive relic of Jesus Christ in existence ... or it is one of the most ingenious, most unbelievably clever, products of the human mind and hand on record. It is one or the other; there is no middle ground." (Walsh, J.E., "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY, 1963, pp.xi-xii. My emphasis).

The leading exponents of the `da Vinci Shroud' theory are Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, but not having seen the show, I don't know if it is based on their particular theory. So in commenting on this ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) summary of the TV show, while I will mention Picknett & Prince's theory, my focus will be on the common problems with all theories that the Shroud of Turin we have today was produced by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

If it was created, it must have been by someone with extraordinary skills. Which means effectively that if the Shroudman's image was not "created" by Leonardo, then it was not "created" by any artist, i.e. the Shroud really is the very burial sheet of Jesus Christ, and the Shroudman's image was produced by His resurrection!

The evidence points to one man, one of the greatest geniuses who has ever lived. This is simply false that the "evidence points to" Leonardo (or any artist). There is fact no evidence that Leonardo da Vinci created the Shroud of Turin! As Wikipedia notes with understatement, "such theories are not taken seriously by all academic scholars":

"Skeptics have proposed many means for producing the image in the Middle Ages. Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (1994). proposed that the shroud is perhaps the first ever example of photography, showing the portrait of its alleged maker, Leonardo da Vinci. ... However, such theories are not taken seriously by all academic scholars, and the notion that Leonardo was a non-Christian heretic or irreligious is similarly rejected by historians."

For starters, 1) the Shroud of Turin has an undisputed European history from its exposition at Lirey, France in c. 1355, but Leonardo was not born until 1452 (i.e. nearly a hundred years later). As historian Mark Guscin, current editor of the British Society for the Turin Shroud newsletter, pointed out, "There was a recorded public exposition of the Shroud at Germolles ... on 13 September 1452" and "Leonardo was born in 1452":

"I first heard about the book, Turin Shroud, In Whose Image? The Shocking Truth Unveiled, in the newsletter of the BSTS (British Society for the Turin Shroud). Any book with a title like this must come under immediate suspicion, as what the authors consider as the shocking truth will probably be no more than one of the many eccentric and contradictory theories that somebody has had about the Shroud. To claim that Leonardo da Vinci made the Shroud is such a ridiculous idea in itself it hardly seems worth the time and effort to refute it. A simple look at dates is enough to do this. There was a recorded public exposition of the Shroud at Germolles by Margaret de Charny on 13 September 1452, a date which not even the most ardent anti-authenticity sindonologists deny. Leonardo was born in 1452. Is it necessary to say more?" (Guscin, M., "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK, 1998, pp.112-113).

So to keep their theory alive, Picknett & Prince's (and indeed any da Vinci Shroud) theory must claim that there were two Shrouds: a) a 14th century Shroud Mk. I that was given to the House of Savoy by Margaret de Charny in 1453; and b) a 15th-16th century Shroud Mk. II that Leonardo created for the House of Savoy in the 1490s. But a major problem for their's (and all) da Vinci Shroud theories is that "the Shroud's" movements "are consistently well attested throughout this whole period, automatically reducing to fiction the ... theory that Leonardo da Vinci `invented' it" (my emphasis):

"During the century and a quarter of the Savoys' ownership of the Shroud, from 1578 back to 1453, the cloth was by no means continuously in Chambéry, although it was of course in the fire in Chambéry's Sainte Chapelle that it received its scars and subsequent patches. This chapel, like its Turin counterpart in 1997, fared much worse than the Shroud itself, all its stained glass and fine fittings being totally destroyed. In the earlier part of this period Savoy's dukes, mostly youngsters who died before reaching maturity, constantly carried the Shroud around with them as they toured their domains with their entourages. Then when from 1502 they made the Sainte Chapelle its theoretically permanent home, first came the disastrous fire, then in 1535 followed a French invasion, which necessitated them sending the Shroud, for its own safety, on a series of refugee journeys to towns and cities as far afield as Turin, Milan, Vercelli, Aosta and Nice. It took until 1561 and the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis before Duke Emmanuel-Philibert's diplomatic and military skills enabled its temporary return to Chambéry. But despite this itinerancy, the Shroud's adventures are consistently well attested throughout this whole period, automatically reducing to fiction the recent theory that Leonardo da Vinci `invented' it in 1492. An account of June 1485, two months before England's battle of Bosworth Field, clearly records the payment of 2 ecus to ducal chaplain Jean Renguis `in recompense for two journeys which he made from Turin to Savigliano carrying the Shroud'. Two years earlier an inventory drawn up by the same Jean Renguis in partnership with sacristan Georges Carrelet, equally clearly describes the Shroud as `enveloped in a red silk drape and kept in a case covered with crimson velours, decorated with silver-gilt nails, and locked with a golden key'. Throughout the years 1478 back to 1471 archive sources enable the tracking of repeated movements of the Shroud, to Pinerolo in 1478, from Ivrea to Chambéry in 1475, from Ivrea to Moncalieri and back again in 1474, from Turin to Ivrea in 1473, from Vercelli to Turin in 1473, from Chambéry to Vercelli in 1471, and so on. Leonardo, it should be noted, was a mere nineteen-year-old in 1471." (Wilson, I., "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1998, p.116).

Was Leonardo da Vinci the man behind the Shroud of Turin? No. For at least seven reasons, including 1) that the Shroud was "consistently well attested throughout this whole period" (see above) so there was no period that the supposed Shroud Mk. I was out of circulation long enough for the public or members of the Savoy family to forgot what it looked like, such that they would then accept without any questions Leonardo's Shroud Mk. II.

As the following history of the Shroud between 1478-1503, while Leonardo was "in Milan for the next 18 years" from 1482 (i.e. ~1482-1499 - see below) in the employ of the "Duke of Milan," the longest period the Shroud was not being publicly exhibited or seen privately by non-members of the House of Savoy was only ~6 years from 1488-1494, and Leonardo was painting The Last Supper from 1495–1498 :

"March 20, 1478 (Good Friday): Shroud exhibited at Pinerolo.
1482: ... About this same time Leonardo da Vinci leaves Florence to serve as court painter and military engineer at the court of Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. He will stay in Milan for the next 18 years.
June 6, 1483: Jean Renguis and Georges Carrelet, respectively chaplain and sacristan of the Sainte Chapelle at Chambéry, draw up an inventory in which the Shroud is described as "enveloped in a red silk drape, and kept in a case covered with crimson velours, decorated with silver-gilt nails, and locked with a golden key."
1485: The Shroud is regularly carried around with the Savoys as their Court journeys from castle to castle.
1488 Easter Sunday: Shroud exhibited at Savigliano.
1494 Good Friday: Dowager Duchess Bianca of Savoy exhibits the Shroud at Vercelli in the presence of Rupis, secretary to the Duke of Mantua. Leonardo begins painting of the Last Supper in Milan, on which he will work for two years.
1498: ... An inventory detailing the Shroud when at Turin in this same year describes its case as "a coffer covered with crimson velours, with silver gilt roses, and the sides silver and the Holy Shroud inside wrapped in a cloth of red silk."
June 11, 1502: At the behest of Duchess of Savoy Marguerite of Austria, the Shroud is no longer moved around with the Savoys during their travels, but given a permanent home in the Royal Chapel of Chambéry Castle. ... The Shroud is displayed on the Chapel's high altar ... .
April 14, 1503 Good Friday: Exposition of the Shroud at Bourg-en-Bresse for Archduke Philip the Handsome, grand-master of Flanders, on his return from a journey to Spain. The Shroud ... is exposed on an altar in one of the great halls of the Duke's palace. ..." (Wilson, I., "Shroud History: Highlights of the Undisputed History," 1996).

As historian Ian Wilson noted of Picknett & Prince's claim that the Shroud Mk. I disappeared "around" 1492, "the cloth's effective control" was "in the hands of ... the Dowager Duchess Bianca, a very devout woman who personally exhibited the Shroud at Vercelli in 1494, and who would hardly have failed to notice had this been a different cloth from the one that she and her retinue had carried around during their travels in the preceding years"! (my emphasis):

"To support their theory of Leonardo having made the Shroud in 1492 they [Picknett & Prince] have repeatedly quoted me as having told Lynn Picknett, `Yes, the Shroud did disappear around then.' With due deference to Ms Picknett's reporting skills, I have equally consistently insisted that I would never in my right senses have made this statement, as ought to be obvious from the chronologies of the Shroud set out both in my 1978 book and this present one. For in my lengthy chronicling of the Shroud's two `disappearances', the year 1492 most certainly does not figure and never has. In that year the Shroud's technical owner was, in fact, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, Duke Charles II, the cloth's effective control thereby being in the hands of his widowed mother the Dowager Duchess Bianca, a very devout woman who personally exhibited the Shroud at Vercelli in 1494, and who would hardly have failed to notice had this been a different cloth from the one that she and her retinue had carried around during their travels in the preceding years." (Wilson, 1998, pp.210-212).

2) it would make Leonardo party to a major art fraud in what would be regarded in the 15th century as extremely serious (to put it mildly), such that he (and the members of the Savoy family who contracted him to do it) would probably have been executed (or if he wasn't his and their reputation would be in tatters) if it had been found out. And how could he not be found out in that Leonardo did not work alone but "maintained an extensive workshop in Milan, employing apprentices and students":

"In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the city's duke ... Ludovico Sforza ... Leonardo spent 17 years in Milan, until Ludovico's fall from power in 1499 ... As a master artist Leonardo maintained an extensive workshop in Milan, employing apprentices and students" ("Leonardo da Vinci," Encyclopaedia Britannica online, 2007).

3) in that whole 17-year period 1482-1499 when Leonardo is supposed to have created Shroud Mk. II, he was employed by the Duke of Milan, not the Duke of Savoy (see above).

4) why would Leonardo (or any great artist) create what would be his greatest work, anonymously, so that he would never get the credit for it?

5) why would Leonardo (or any great artist) waste his time on what would just be a copy of an existing work (if it was too different it would not fool the public, which after all, was supposedly the object of the excercise)?

6) despite the fact that "Leonardo's notebooks add up to thousands of closely written pages abundantly illustrated with sketches-the most voluminous literary legacy any painter has ever left behind":

"It was during his first years in Milan that Leonardo began the earliest of his notebooks. He would first make quick sketches of his observations on loose sheets or on tiny paper pads he kept in his belt; then he would arrange them according to theme and enter them in order in the notebook. Surviving in notebooks from throughout his career are a first collection of material for a painting treatise, a model book of sketches for sacred and profane architecture, a treatise on elementary theory of mechanics, and the first sections of a treatise on the human body. Leonardo's notebooks add up to thousands of closely written pages abundantly illustrated with sketches-the most voluminous literary legacy any painter has ever left behind." ("Leonardo da Vinci," Encyclopaedia Britannica online, 2007).

yet "None of Leonardo's notebooks, in which he evidently wrote down everything he thought or conceived or invented, ever mention a word about the Shroud of Turin" (my emphasis):

"None of Leonardo's notebooks, in which he evidently wrote down everything he thought or conceived or invented, ever mention a word about the Shroud of Turin. Despite the fact that Picknett and Prince claim that there are Leonardo notebooks which have been lost, the fact remains that there is not a shred of historical documentation to support the theory that Leonardo created the Shroud any more than there is to back their novel historical and theological ideas. There is as much evidence to prove that Leonardo created the Shroud as there is that he built the pyramids." (Ruffin, C.B., "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, 1999, p.141).

7) for all Leonardo's genius (or maybe because of it), he was actually a very slow painter whose total lifetime painting output that has survived is "only 17 ... paintings" and of those "several ... are unfinished" (my emphasis):

"Leonardo's total output in painting is really rather small; only 17 of the paintings that have survived can be definitely attributed to him, and several of them are unfinished." ("Leonardo da Vinci," Encyclopaedia Britannica online, 2007).

Therefore, as artist Isabel Piczek pointed out, Leonardo was too slow a painter to have painted the image on the Shroud, because it is of "a cadaver in the state of rigor mortis" and the artist "would have had to finish his work" in "a very limited time" which would be "too fast for the slow Leonardo" (my emphasis):

"Isabel Piczek, an artist and physicist, said that ? `The image shows a cadaver in the state of rigor mortis. He would have had to finish his work before that condition changed, and that is a very limited time, too fast for the slow Leonardo... . Working at Leonardo's speed the man of the Shroud would have been not much more than a skeleton.[Piczek, I., "Why Leonardo da Vinci Could Not Have Painted The Shroud," British Society for the Turin Shroud Newsletter, No. 28, April/May 1991, p.15]." (Guerrera, V., "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, 2000, p.70).

Worshipped by millions as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most sacred and controversial relics of the Christian world. The Shroud itself is not "Worshipped" (which would be idolatry), but rather the One who left His image on the Shroud, Jesus Christ, is worshipped. Especially for the horrific suffering (see `tagline' quote below) that the Shroud of Turin graphically reveals Jesus went through in order to save all those who chose to receive Him (John 1:10-12).

I could have ended here, since the above seven points comprehensively refute the da Vinci Shroud theory (whether Picknett & Prince's or anyone's. But I have some more comments to make on the rest of the article. Therefore, to be continued in part #2.

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Stephen E. Jones
Posted 6 July 2007. Updated 8 March 2025.

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"Jesus and the Shroud It is revealing to compare the wounds inflicted on the man buried in the Shroud with the witness of the New Testament concerning the crucifixion procedure used with Jesus. The correlation is, simply stated, quite remarkable. Before he was crucified, Jesus was subjected to a variety of punishments. The Roman soldiers scourged him (Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1). The man of the Shroud was beaten very severely. Ricci counts more than 220 scourge wounds on his body, located on almost every area with the exception of the head, feet, and arms. [Ricci, G., "Historical, Medical, and Physical Study of the Holy Shroud," 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, p.60] Wilson records somewhat fewer scourge wounds, but still enough to constitute a very severe beating. [Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin," Doubleday: New York NY, 1979, p.38] We have seen how these marks were most likely inflicted by the Roman flagrum, a feared instrument of torture which inflicted great pain by sometimes even ripping out small pieces of flesh with each blow. The Romans also mocked Jesus for his claims to be the Son of God and the Messiah. The soldiers placed a purple robe on him and put a reed in his hand in order to jeer him, pretending to address him as king. They even bowed down to him, imitating worship. Then, to further scoff at him, they made a crown out of thorns and forcefully placed it on his head (Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17-20; John 19:2). This is another close parallel between Jesus and the man in the Shroud. Numerous puncture wounds can be observed in the man's scalp. Close examination reveals that these wounds differ from those caused by the scourging and were independently inflicted. [Willis, D. in Wilson, Ibid., pp.36-37] The gospels also relate that Jesus was repeatedly struck in the face (Matthew 27:30; Mark 15:19; Luke 22:63-64; John 19:3). Such a beating can be observed in the image on the Shroud. The man has several bruises and swellings around both eyes, both cheeks, the nose, and the chin. After Jesus' scourging, mock crowning with thorns, and beating, he was taken away to be crucified. He was made to carry his own cross (John 19:17) but apparently stumbled and fell, since a bystander, Simon of Cyrene, was forced to carry it for him (Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). Bruises on the upper back just below the shoulders indicate that the man in the Shroud also carried or supported a heavy object. We know this happened after the scourging, because the rubbing of the heavy object slightly altered the scourge wounds underneath. Additionally, there are cuts and bruises on both knees, indicating a fall on a hard surface. The left knee is particularly badly cut. The gospels relate that Jesus was nailed to the cross through the feet and the hand-wrist area (Luke 24:39; John 20:20, 25-27). The Shroud likewise shows a man pierced through the wrists at the base of the palms and through the feet. Forensic pathologists are convinced that the man, like Jesus, was crucified. A striking similarity concerns the gospel report that normal crucifixion procedure included breaking the legs of the victims in order to hasten death (John 19:31-32). The discovery of the skeleton of Yohanan verifies the gospel report. However, the gospels say that the soldiers did not break Jesus' legs because he was already dead. Instead, a Roman soldier stabbed him in the side in order to assure his death. Blood and water flowed from the open wound (John 19:33-34). Similarly, the man in the Shroud did not have his legs broken and he was also stabbed in the side. Amazingly, a mixture of blood and water is ascertainable on the Shroud. The blood and water flowed vertically down the right side of the chest to the waist, where it spread horizontally across the back. Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for slaves, war captives, and the worst political prisoners. Therefore, there was normally very little interest in providing the victim with anything more than a minimal burial. Yet, the gospels explain that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man who placed Jesus' body in his own new tomb. Joseph gave Jesus an individual burial, complete with linen wrappings and spices (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:43-46; Luke 23:50-55; John 19:38-42). In spite of this attention and care, the burial process was hurried and was not completed before the Sabbath began (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:55-24:1). The case of the man in the Shroud is similar. He was also buried individually in linen wrappings and there are also indications that his burial was not completed. ... This comparison of the gospel accounts with the sufferings and burial of the man of the Shroud points to the strong likelihood that the man is Jesus Christ. The evidence is consistent at every point. The man of the Shroud suffered, died, and was buried the way the gospels say Jesus was." (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.122-124. Emphasis original).