Manoppello Image

Background

Local tradition says that in 1508, an unknown pilgrim came to Manoppello carrying a cloth in a package. The pilgrim handed it to Dr. Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, who was on a bench in front of the church. Leonelli took the package inside, unwrapped it, and found the veil.

He rushed out to find the pilgrim but could not. The Leonelli family kept the veil for a hundred years. In 1608, a soldier named Pancrazio Petrucci, who was married to Marzia, a Leonelli family member, stole it from his father-in-law’s house.

A few years later, Marzia sold the veil for 400 scudi to Doctor Donato Antonio De Fabritiis to raise money for her husband’s ransom, as he was a prisoner in Chieti. De Fabritiis then gave the veil to the Capuchins, who still hold it. This account comes from Father Donato da Bomba’s Relatione historica, based on research started in 1640.

In 1999, German Jesuit Heinnrich Pfeiffer, a Professor of Art History at the Pontifical Gregorian University, held a press conference in Rome to announce he had discovered the veil in the Capuchin monastery church, where it had been since 1660. Pfeiffer had been promoting the image for many years before that. He claims the cloth is the Veil of Veronica. He suggests it was stolen from the Vatican during rebuilding in 1506, before the Sacking of Rome.

He also says the cloth was placed over Jesus’ face in the tomb and that the image resulted from the forces of the resurrection, which he believes also created the image on the Shroud of Turin. He has proposed a history for the veil going back to the first century. However, his narrative lacks supporting evidence. There is no proven link between the cloth and Rome or the crucifixion.

Despite this, the cloth has gained much attention in recent years, and Pope Benedict XVI visited it on 1 September 2006.

Origins

The material of the veil has never been tested in a lab, as no samples have been permitted. One recent study suggests linen is the most likely fabric. Some have claimed it is made of byssus, a rare fiber from the Pinna nobilis mollusk, woven into sea silk and historically used around the Mediterranean. Journalist Paul Badde has stated that such fabric is usually only found in Egyptian pharaohs' tombs, but byssus was never exclusive to Egypt; it was a high-quality material produced by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, medieval French and Italians, and even modern Sardinians.

Most researchers argue that the face on the Manoppello veil looks like a man-made image, not a divine one, and its style matches art from the Late Middle Ages or early Renaissance. Professor Jan Jaworski has proposed that the image might be created by a bleaching process affecting pheomelanin in byssal threads, rather than by using pigment.

At a 2010 workshop at the ENEA Research Centre in Frascati, some proponents noted that the image, along with related copies, is typical of human representations from a certain period. They described it as poorly executed, with many stylized features, suggesting the artist either lacked understanding of realistic proportion or deliberately avoided it. However, some details, like the crooked nose, might reflect a beaten, bruised Christ that people would expect in a divine image.

Another objection comes from researcher Ian Wilson, who argues that the Manoppello image does not resemble known copies of the Veronica, so it cannot be the version venerated in the Middle Ages. Paul Badde, in his 2010 book The Face of God, disagrees with Wilson. He compares the Manoppello image to other depictions he claims were made before 1608, showing a man with open eyes and an open mouth, just like the veil.

Urban legends

According to a paper by Fanti and Jaworski, which has been described as pseudoscientific, the face on the Manoppello Image shares numerous interesting analogies with the face on the Shroud of Turin, though the shapes and sizes of the two are not identical. The authors claim to have found 3D properties in the Manoppello Image similar to those of the Shroud, albeit weaker, and conclude that these characteristics support the idea that it is an Acheropita image—meaning an image not made by human hands. This conclusion contradicts the work of photography expert R. Falcinelli, who argues that the Manoppello Image is a manmade painted artifact reminiscent of existing iconography.

Gian Marco Rinaldi of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CICAP) goes further, stating that the notion of the Manoppello Image containing no trace of pigment is an urban legend. He traces this legend to internet sites, blogs, public statements by Italian religious authorities, and articles by Paul Badde in Die Welt, all of which he says dubiously extrapolated from the work of Donato Vittore and Giulio Fanti. Rinaldi notes that Fanti, despite being pro-authenticity, never claimed there were no traces of pictorial pigments.

In his papers, Fanti stated only that the method of the image's creation is unknown to him and that it was not made by weaving colored thread. Fanti and his collaborators acknowledged that certain parts of the image do contain pigments, but when examined at high magnification between fibers, the pigments were found only on the fabric's surface, not between the fibers—a result they attributed to the characteristics of the extremely fine byssus fabric.