1. A presentation by
Joseph M. Laufer

2. Burial shrouds have been used since ancient times and were wrapped lengthwise around the body as shown in this painting, an aquatint attributed to Giovanni Battista della Rovere ( ), La Santa Sindone, in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin.

10. On 14 December 1578 Duke Emanuele Filiberto moved the Shroud to Turin to shorten the trip Archbishop (Saint) Charles Borromeo was about to take in order to see the relic. This was the first exposition of the Shroud.

12. 1898 Many events were celebrated in Turin in 1898:
the 50th anniversary of the Albertine Statute
the 4th centennial of the construction of the Cathedral
the 3rd anniversary of the foundation of the "Confraternita del Santissimo Sudario“
the 1500th Ecclesiastical Council in the city of Turin.
An exposition took place between 25th May and 2nd June to celebrate these special occasions.

13. During the exposition of 1898, attorney Secondo Pia was allowed by the Savoia royal family to photograph the Shroud of Turin for the first time. Here it is shown the negative of the first picture he took. It measured cm. ( in.), and was exposed for one minute.
This is the negative of the fourth picture, taken by Secondo Pia after a 5 minutes exposure.
While the base of the altar appears reversed, the image of the shroud is in photographic positive, proving that the figure on the linen was naturally imprinted in negative.

14. 1898: During a public exhibition of the Shroud in Turin, Secondo Pia, an Italian amateur photographer, took the first photograph of the Shroud. While examining his large glass plate negative, before making a print, he discovered the extraordinary phenomenon of the Shroud images' negativity. His photograph was news around the world. It ushered in an era of scientific research of the Shroud, which continue today.  

15. This picture shows the altar and the Shroud at the time of the first exposition in 1898.

16. 1902: Sorbonne professor Yves Delage, an agnostic, presented a paper on the Shroud to the prestigious French Academy of Sciences in Paris in which he argued that the Shroud's anatomical and other scientific qualities convinced him that the Shroud had really wrapped the "body of Christ" and that the image was probably a natural phenomenon caused by chemical vapors. Marcelin Berthelot, the secretary of the physics section of the Academy, the renowned discoverer of thermo-chemistry principles, and a militant atheist, ordered Delage to rewrite his paper so that it dealt only on the the chemistry without mentioning the Shroud. It was foolish. Newspaper reporters had the story and the Paris edition of New York Herald carried the headline, "Photographs of Christ's Body found by science."

17. 1931
A memorable exposition was called from May 3-24, to celebrate the wedding of Umberto di Savoia with the Belgian princess Maria José on 8 January The picture shows the poster announcing that exposition.
This is how the altar (designed by G. Casanova ) was decorated for the Exposition of 1931.
The Shroud exhibited in the Cathedral of Turin.

18. At the end of the 1931 Exposition the Shroud was shown to the faithful on the flight of steps in front of the Cathedral.
It was during the 1931 Exposition that Giuseppe Enrie took the definitive photographs of the Shroud which took the 1898 photographic discoveries of Secondo Pia to the next level and which began a series of scientific investigations of the Shroud for the next 70 years – leading to the Carbon 14 tests in 1995.

19. 1933
Pope Pius IX called an exposition of the Shroud from September 24 to October 15, to celebrate in a solemn way the extraordinary Holy Year. The poster to the left announces the exposition.
The Shroud was exhibited in the Cathedral of Turin. A decorative "imperial" was added to the frame that had already been used for the Shroud in 1931.

20. The frame, used in 1931 and in 1933, was then placed behind the central altar in the church of the "Confraternita del SS. Sudario" (Confraternity of the Holy Shroud), with a life-sized photographic copy of the Shroud.

21. In September 1939, the Shroud was secretly moved from the Cathedral of Turin to the Benedictine Abbey of Montevergine, northeast of Naples to protect it during World War II. It remained there until 1946.
As a reward for their protection of the Shroud, the Monks were given a private exposition of the Shroud in 1946 before it was returned to Turin at the conclusion of the War.

22. 1969 – Private Exposition
From June 16 to 18, a private exposition was prepared in the Chapel of Cristo Crocifisso in the Royal palace of Turin, to allow an analysis of the linen by a group of experts nominated by Cardinal M. Pellegrino.

23. 1973
                                      
On 23 November 1973 the Shroud was exhibited in the Salone degli Svizzeri, a large hall of the Royal Palace of Turin. For the first time the Exposition was broadcast on television.
Some fragments of linen were sampled for hematologic and microscopic analysis. The enlarged pictures illustrate the front and back of one of those samples.

24. 1978
Between August 26 and October 8, more than three million people went to venerate the Holy Shroud of Turin.
The Shroud was moved to the Cathedral, where it was exhibited in front of the altar in a glass case.

25. This is the central altar of the Cathedral of Turin
where the Shroud was exhibited in 1978.
Pilgrims waiting in line to enter the Cathedral.

26. At the end of the 1978 exposition, 44 scientists were allowed to run tests directly on the Shroud, which was placed on a special revolving table.

27. 1980
A special private exposition was arranged for Pope John Paul the second, who went to Turin on a pastoral visit on 13 April In the picture you can see the Holy Father kissing the linen.

28. This strip was removed from the Shroud in 1988 when scientists used carbon-14 dating to test the age of the cloth
They tested samples from an outside strip of the cloth removed during the 1988 dating effort. Giovani Riggi, the scientific caretaker of the Shroud at the time, kept the strip and later provided samples to Mattingly and Garza-Valdes. "The Catholic Church did not sanction the removal and giving of the material to us and would not certify that the pieces were authentic. Nevertheless, we know that they are authentic," Mattingly says.

29. 1997
                                                          A private exposition was organized few days after the fire of the Cathedral of Turin on April 11, 1997, to see if the linen had been damaged.
In the picture Cardinal Saldarini and some experts are examining the Shroud.

30. 1998
Between April 18 and June 14, more than three million people went to venerate the Holy Shroud of Turin.

32. The Shroud was exhibited again in the Jubilee Year, 2000

33. The Shroud of Turin 2002: the restoration process
June-July 2002: safely placed within the bounds of the Cathedral, the Shroud was subjected to a thorough conservative treatment: 1. The linen was separated from its old backing layer (Holland cloth), and the so-called «patches» sewn by the Poor Clares of Chambéry after the fire of 1532 were carefully removed. A new backing came to replace the former one. 2. A full-length digital scan of the Shroud linen detailed its image side and backside. 3. The photographic documentation on the Shroud has been vastly improved and updated.

34. A Full Shroud Image Copyright 1931 by G
A Full Shroud Image Copyright 1931 by G. Enrie (Giuseppe Enrie) from the Aldo Guerreschi Collection. 

35. A more recent Full Shroud Image Copyrighted Archdiocese of Torino.

36. Positive Image of full Shroud
Negative Image of full Shroud

37. Barrie Schwortz – STURP Team Barrie Schwortz – STURP Team
Dorsal Image – 1978
Barrie Schwortz – STURP Team
Ventral Image – 1978
Barrie Schwortz – STURP Team

38. Ventral Image – Positive
Ventral Image – Negative

39. Dorsal Image – Positive
Dorsal Image – Negative

40. Negative Images – Front and Back

48. 1931: Giuseppe Enrie photographed the Shroud
1931: Giuseppe Enrie photographed the Shroud. His photographs confirmed Secondo Pia's findings. This was important because some believed that Pia had made a mistake or even doctored his photographs.
1973: The Shroud was secretly examined by a group of experts, brought together by Cardinal Pellegrino. Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist, took samples of surface dust and other particulate material from the Shroud's surface. Gilbert Raes took a small sample from the area where samples for carbon 14 dating would be taken fifteen years later. This sample, along with other material from the carbon 14 snipping would prove instrumental, years later, in proving that the carbon 14 samples were invalid.
1976: At the Sandia Laboratories, John Jackson and Bill Mottern viewed, for the first time, the Shroud's three-dimensional terrain mapping characteristic on a VP8 Image Analyzer. It was significant because this amazing optical quality brought together scientists with many different disciplines into a group that would become the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP).
1976: Report of the Turin Scientific Commission (of 1973) with findings of Max Frei, who reported that the Shroud's dust included pollens from some plants that are exclusive to Israel and to Turkey, suggesting that the Shroud must have been exposed to the air in these countries.

49. 1978: STURP conducted a five-day period of examination of the Shroud that included technical photography and the taking of particulate samples. At the same time, Max Frei, Giovanni Riggi, Pierluigi Baima-Bollone and others carried out independent research programs.  The Shroud was photographed with visible light, narrow-band ultraviolet light, an low-power x-ray. A side edge was unstitched from the backing cloth and an apparatus inserted between the Shroud and its backing cloth to examine the underside. Baima Bollone obtained samples of Shroud bloodstain by mechanically disentangling some warp and weft threads. Ray Rogers stopped off in Chicago to hand-deliver thirty-two of the sticky tape samples taken from the Shroud to Walter McCrone.
1979: STURP conducted a workshop to analyze some of the data obtained the previous year.  Preliminary findings were that the image showed no evidence of the hand of an artist; the body image did not appear to be any form of scorch; and the bloodstains were probably present before the body image. But Walter McCrone claimed he has found evidence of an artist.  STURP scientists could not agree with McCrone's views.
1988: After Giovanni Riggi and Luigi Gonella argue for two hours about where to cut the sample, Riggi cuts a sample from the Shroud to be divided and tested by three radiocarbon dating laboratories. Riggi also took blood samples from the lower part of the crown-of-thorns bloodstains on the Shroud's dorsal image and takes away a portion of the Shroud he cut away that was not needed carbon 14 dating laboratories. These samples were placed in a bank vault.

50. 1989: The prestigious scientific journal Nature, published the official results of the Shroud radiocarbon dating. It declares that the results "provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval.“
2000: Joseph G. Marino And M. Sue Benford publish a paper, "Evidence For The Skewing Of The C-14 Dating Of The Shroud Of Turin Due To Repairs.“
2002: Textile experts, headed by Mechtild Fleury-Lemberg, undertook a radical "restoration" of the Shroud under the auspices of the Archbishop of Turin. Some scientists think that the restoration, conducted in secret for security reasons following 9/11, was reckless and perhaps dangerous to the long term preservation of the cloth.  Thirty patches sewn to the cloth by Poor Clare Nuns in 1534 to repair burn holes from the 1532 fire are removed. The backing cloth, also sewn on in 1534 is also removed and replaced with a new backing cloth. Carbonized material near the burn holes was scraped clean. Weights attached to the edges, along with steam, are used to flatten many creases in the cloth and steam is used where necessary. Scientific experts who understand the nature of the images on the cloth are not consulted. Because the images are formed by microscopically thin coatings of starch fractions and sugars that adhere to some of the Shroud's fibers, there is a real possibility that the stretching and the use of steam could loosen some of the image bearing material. According to Barrie Schwortz, "They set off a firestorm of controversy, criticism, debate and recrimination that ultimately engulfs, polarizes and divides the Shroud research community.

51. 2002: The shroud.com website published a paper, "Scientific Method Applied To The Shroud Of Turin: A Review," by Raymond N. Rogers, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Anna Arnoldi, Department of Agrifood Molecular Sciences, University of Milan University of Milan. The paper explains the chemical nature of the images and explains why the carbon 14 samples were invalid. It supports the earlier arguments of Marino and Benford.
2003: The peer-reviewed scientific journal, Melanoidins (vol. 4, Ames J.M. ed., Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2003, pp ) published an article, "The Shroud Of Turin: An Amino-Carbonyl Reaction (Maillard Reaction) May Explain The Image Formation," by Raymond N. Rogers, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Anna Arnoldi, Department of Agrifood Molecular Sciences, University of Milan University of Milan. The article further explained the chemical nature of the images and proposed a natural image formation process.
2004: The peer-reviewed journal of the Institute of Physics in London, on April 14, 2004, announced that Giulio Fanti and Roberto Maggiolo, both of the University of Padua, Italy, have found a second face image on the back of the Shroud of Turin. This image corresponds to the front image but is much fainter. And this image, like the front image, is completely superficial to the topmost crown fibers of the cloth. Because both images are superficial (meaning there is no image or colorant of any kind between the two image layers on the extreme outer faces of the cloth) and because the images are in registry with each other, all so-far-proposed fakery proposals are moot. The images are not paintings and not some form of medieval proto-photography.

57. 10th Century Painting of the Legend: King Abgar receiving what has probably come to be known as the Shroud of Turin
According to legend, Abgar V Ouchama, the King of Edessa (13 –50 CE) sent a letter to Jesus asking him to come to Edessa. Jesus declined the invitation but miraculously impressed a picture of himself on a piece of cloth.  In a variation of the legend, the image-bearing cloth was brought to Abgar by a disciples known to us as Thaddeus Jude (Addai) who was, perhaps dispatched to do so by the apostle Thomas. In both versions the king, who suffered from an incurable aitment, was miraculously cured when he beheld the image of Jesus’ face.
Early written account of the legend refer only to a facial image. But a later description of the cloth by Gregory Referendarius, the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia, in 944 CE, makes it clear that the Edessa cloth was a full-sized image-bearing burial shroud with a bloodstain from the piercing in Jesus' side.
Notice, in this 10th century painting, the facial image is centered on a horizontally shaped cloth (landscape orientation rather than portrait orientation). This is how the face appears on the Shroud of Turin when it is folded into eight sections. Persistent creases for just such a folding were discovered on the Shroud in 1988, suggesting that the cloth had been stored folded for a long time.

58. Painting Illustrating the Finding of the Cloth of the Legend in 544
Somehow, and at sometime, a cloth, with what was believed to be the image of Jesus, turned up in Edessa. Legend tells us it was brought to King Abgar Vof Edessa by one of Jesus' disciples, perhaps Thaddeus Jude (Addai), or by the king's messenger. But that is legend. What is certain is that, somehow, a cloth bearing what was believed to be an image of Jesus came to be in Edessa and was hidden away in a gate in the city walls.
We don't know from extant records when or why the cloth was hidden away. It could well have been because of floods to which Edessa was prone, because of the threat of invasion, or because of Christian persecutions. What is not legend is that the cloth, with an image thought to be Jesus, was discovered in the walls of the city in the sixth century, almost certainly in 544 CE during a Persian invasion of the city. The cloth of a great legend was placed in a church built especially for it.

59. The Walls of Edessa
These are remnants of the walls that surrounded the ancient city of Edessa. This is an opening in the wall where a gate would have been built.
It was a practice in ancient cities of the Middle East area to mount a stone tile with a picture of some favored deity above the city’s main gate. We know that the cloth of Edessa bearing an image, thought to be an image of Jesus, was found hidden above the gate ca. 544 CE. It is possilbe that the cloth had been hidden to protect it during times of Christian persecutions. We know that during the many persecutions of the first three centuries, valuable relics, writings, and ceremonial items of the church were routinely destroyed. There is evidence of local persecutions in Edessa as early as the latter part of the first century and of Roman persecutions that persisted until the time of Emperor Constantine. If, in fact, the cloth was taken to Edessa in the early part of the first century, it might have been hidden for protection as early as the reign of Ma’nu VI, Abgar’s son, who is thought to have reverted to paganism following his father's acceptance of Christianity.

60. The Sudarium of Oviedo - The Face Cloth
In the city of Oviedo, in northern Spain, in a small chapel attached to the city’s cathedral, there is a small bloodstained dishcloth size piece of linen that some believe is one of the burial cloths mentioned in John’s Gospel. Tradition has it that this cloth, commonly known as the Sudarium of Oviedo, was used to cover Jesus’ bloodied face following his death on the cross.
Forensic analysis of the bloodstains suggests strongly that both the Sudarium and the Shroud covered the same human head at closely different times. Bloodstain patterns show that the Sudarium was placed about a man’s head while he was still in a vertical position, presumably before he was removed from the cross. It was then removed before the Shroud was placed over the man’s face.
If the Sudarium is related to the Shroud, the historical implications are dramatic. The Sudarium, unquestionably, has been in Oviedo since the 8th century and in Spain since the 7th century. It seems, according to various records, to have arrived from Jerusalem.

61. Byzantine Emperor's Troops Take Edessa Cloth
In 944, Emperor Romanus I sent an army to remove the Edessa Cloth and transfer it to Constantinople.
There are many references to it after 944. In 1080, Alexis Comnenus of Constantinople sought assistance from Emperor Henry IV and Robert of Flanders to protect some of the city’s relics including “the cloth found in the sepulcher after the resurrection.” A Roman codex in 1130 speaks of the cloth “on which the image, not only of My face, but of My whole body has been divinely transformed.”
The most significant record of the cloth may be in a sermon preached by Gregory Referendarius, the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople,  on the occasion of the transfer of the cloth.  The sermon, which was recently discovered in the Vatican Archives and translated from the ancient Greek by Mark Guscin, reveals, explicitly, that the Edessa Cloth contained a full length image, one that was believed to be of Jesus. It had obvious bloodstains from a side wound.

62. Pray Codex Illustration with Fabric Pattern and Burn Holes
They are often called the poker holes because some have speculated that L-shaped patterns of burn holes on the Shroud were created by someone thrusting a hot poker through the Shroud.
The speculation is that this was some sort of “test by fire” to ascertain the Shroud’s authenticity. That seems fanciful and there is no good basis for imagining that this is how the holes were formed. But they are burn holes. The cloth was folded in half lengthwise and again in half to half its width when the burns were made. This is evident as there are four matched mirrored repetitions of the holes showing progressive levels of burn penetration. Each pattern has four burn marks or holes. It is more probable that the burns were caused by a careless thurifer who may have accidentally sprinkled some granules of burning incense onto the Shroud.
However the burn holes came about, it did not happen in a devastating fire in Chambéry in 1532 when the Shroud was severely damaged by molten silver dripping onto it from its storage reliquary. We know that because a copy of the Shroud, the Lier Shroud painted in 1516, possibly by Albrecht Durer or Bernard van Orley, clearly shows the burn holes.
There is a far more interesting and older picture of the burn holes. In the Budapest National Library there is an ancient codex, known commonly as the Hungarian Pray Manuscript or Pray Codex, named for György Pray ( ), a Jesuit scholar who made the first detailed study of it.
This codex was written between 1192 and An illustration, one of five in the manuscript, shows Jesus being placed on his burial shroud, a shroud with the identical pattern of burn holes found on the Shroud. The artist has drawn the very unusual herringbone weave on the shroud and a number of other graphic characteristics consistent with the Shroud: Jesus is shown naked with his arms modestly folded at the wrists, the fingers are unusually long in appearance as they are on the Shroud, and there are no visible thumbs. There are no thumbs visible in the images of the man of the Shroud either. Forensic pathologists tell us that this makes sense since nails driven through the wrist would likely cause the thumbs to fold into the palms. In the drawing, there is also a clear mark on Jesus’ forehead where the most prominent 3-shaped bloodstain is found on the forehead of the man of the Shroud.
There can be little question that this illustrator of the Pray Codex, far removed from France – working at a time before the sacking of Constantinople by French knights, before the time given for the Shroud by carbon 14 testing, and before or the d’Arcis Memorandum – knew about the Shroud, the Image of Edessa.

63. Delacroix Painting of Crusaders Entering Constantinople in 1204
In 1204, knights of the Fourth Crusade looted the treasures of Constantinople and carried away many riches and relics. The image-bearing Edessa Cloth disappeared along with other priceless treasures. There is some evidence that the Edessa Cloth, then known as the Holy Mandylion, was taken to Athens. About a year after Constantinople was plundered, Theodore Ducas Anglelos wrote in a letter to Pope Innocent III:
The Venetians partitioned the treasure of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after His death and before the resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice and France and in other places.
In 1207, Nicholas d’Orrante, Abbott of Casole and the Papal Legate in Athens, wrote about relics taken from Constantinople by French knights. Referring specifically to burial cloths, he mentions seeing them “with our own eyes” in Athens. 

64. A Likely Possibility: Besançon
The Edessa Cloth can be implicitly linked to the Marquis Boniface de Montferrat who led the attack on the Bucholean Palace and Pharos Chapel in Constantinople where the cloth was kept. When it surfaced in Athens, three years later, it was in the trust of Otto de la Roche, an associate of the Marquis Boniface de Montferrat.
Historians have speculated that the cloth may have passed into the hands to the Knights Templar soon thereafter. They were a powerful, rich and secretive organization. Under Phillip IV of France, efforts to suppress their power and acquire their assets resulted in extraordinary charges being leveled against them, including secret rituals of worshipping an image with a bearded man's face. In 1307, the leaders of the Templars, were executed. One of the leaders was a knight called Geoffrey de Charny, possibly a relative of the Geoffrey de Charny who displayed the Shroud in Lirey about 50 years later.
But there is another tantalizing possibility: Besançon. Historian Dan Scavone has proposed that the Shroud was taken to Besançon early after its disappearance from Constantinople. There is some evidence that it was acquired by Geoffrey de Charny before 1349 when wrote to Pope Clement VI stating his intention to build a church at Lirey.

65. The Church in Lirey
Geoffrey de Charny, a French knight, wrote to Pope Clement VI stating that he intended to build a church at Lirey, France. These are photographs of St. Mary of Lirey church as it appears today. Notice the pictures of the Shroud of Turin on the walls on both sides of the altar.
It is said he builds  to honor the Holy Trinity who answered his prayers for a miraculous escape while a prisoner of the English. He is also already in possession of the Shroud, which some believe he acquired in Constantinople.
It was at this church that the Shroud was exhibited in 1355. 
Geoffrey de Charny was killed by the English at the Battle of Poitiers, fighting at the side of the King of France. 
The Shroud remained in the de Charny family for about one hundred years until it passes to the Savoy family.

66. Exposition Medallion of Shroud ca. 1356
Large crowds of pilgrims visited the church at Lirey to view the Shroud and special souvenir medallions are struck. This is a surviving specimen that may be found at the Cluny Museum in Paris.
Notice the engraving of the Shroud images above the crests.

67. Shroud Damage in 1532 Fire
In 1502, the Shroud is given a permanent home in the Royal Chapel of Chambéry Castle.
In 1532, a fire breaks out in the chapel, which is seriously damaged by molten silver that fell on one corner of the folded cloth, resulting in eight roughly symmetrical burin patters and two burn lines running the length of the cloth.  In April 1534, Chambéry's Poor Clare nuns repaired the Shroud by sewing it onto a backing cloth  and sewing patches over the worst of the damage. These repairs should not be confused with the earlier expert reweaving repairs that affected the carbon 14 dating. These patches and the backing cloth were removed during the restoration of the Shroud in 2002.

68. Turin Cathedral - Home of the Shroud
In 1578, the Shroud moved to its final city home: Turin. Cardinal Charles Borromeo, in that year, was to travel on foot from Milan to Chambery to give thanks to the Shroud following the end of the plague in Milan. To prevent the rigors of a journey across the Alps, Duke Emanuel Philibert had the cloth moved to Turin.
In September 1939, the Shroud was secretly moved to the Benedictine Abbey of Montevergine, northeast of Naples to protect it. It remained there until 1946.
In November 1973, experts were brought together to secretly examine the Shroud. It was then Max Frei, a Swiss criminologist, took samples of surface dust and pollen and  Gilbert Raes took a sample of material from an edge of the Shroud. The Raes sample would later prove instrumental in helping to prove that the carbon 14 dating samples were invalid.