The Shroud Of Christ By Paul Vignon D.Sc (Fr) Part 37.

Let us imagine our painter, brushes in hand, before a large piece of cloth more than five yards long. Let us think of him as taking his measurements so that in each of the simulated impressions the different parts of the body may correspond exactly. We will suppose him accustomed to the accurate measurements and proportions of casts. We will even suppose that, gifted with preternatural ingenuity, he would know how to assign to the thighs, the calves, the ankles, the extraordinary forms visible on the Shroud, the whole thing done in order to deceive pilgrims who in truth would have been satisfied with less exactitude. We will even suppose him clever enough to avoid all the pit-falls which nature prepares for us when we try to counterfeit her by art.

It is in the modelling of the face that we shall detect our painter.

With a simple object it is easy enough to invert the lights and shades, to reproduce the aspect of an ordinary geometrical figure, such as a cube, a cylinder, or a sphere in negative. But examine Plate n.; search therein for any markings which could have served to facilitate the execution of a fraud.

Whatever M. Chopin may say, nothing could be less regular, nothing could be more unexpected than the nose, the eyebrows, cheek-bones and cheeks ; nothing more obscure than the forehead and the hair and the modelling of the mouth. On Plate n., beneath the nose, a succession of tints are strangely blended, dark and light alternatively. No one could even interpret them without the aid of Plate in. How could these markings have been invented which are so hard to read on the holy Shroud ? Of course, after closely examining the facsimile of the negative on Plate in., which gives their real signification to all the features, we can go back to our examination of the linen cloth and interpret it rightly ; but will any one tell us by what process a negative model could have been executed so that the author, whilst at work upon it, could have judged of what its effect would be when inverted and brought back to its positive condition.

But we go too far. The hypothesis is absurd, and could not be maintained unless the Holy Shroud, instead of being what it is, resembled the copies which have been made of it, such as the Shroud of Besançon.

We must not take a step forward without investigating all the objections which might by any possibility arise.

Could a fraudulent artist of the Middle Ages by any known artifice have executed a head in negative on the linen cloth ? A negative does not exist in nature, but in certain conditions a negative may be simulated. Place your hand flat against a window ; the fingers, with the light shining just behind them, appear as they would in a negative. The same with the cheeks and nose, if looked at in the same way.

But shut your hand and look towards the light through your closed fist. No matter how bright the light, the crevices between the fingers will remain dark ; yet in a real negative these crevices would be light ! In a head we have not only to reckon with prominent features, such as the nose and cheeks ; there are also the eyes and mouth to be considered, and no amount of light would change their normal aspect.

Further argument seems unnecessary.

The Shroud Of Christ By Paul Vignon D.Sc (Fr) Part 19.

The Besançon Shroud also proves to us that the contemporaries of the so-called forger of Lirey were quite unaware of the real nature of the impressions which were said to have been fabricated. What indeed could they know of the values of the photographic terms, positive and negative ?

It seems clear that their knowledge sufficed only to produce the grotesque and ridiculous copy which we have evoked from its ashes at Besançon, and which had none of the transcendent qualities of the Holy Shroud of Turin

The Holy Shroud of Besançon may now, we think, be suffered to pass into oblivion. But before quitting the town in which the so-called relic was preserved up to the time of the Revolution, let us see what its historian, Dr. Chifflet, has to say; this time about the Shroud of Turin.

If, as M. Chevalier states, the Shroud of Turin was unknown to Chifflet, we must remember that he had a brother who lived at Turin, and from this fact his engravings may furnish some information, especially as Chifflet speaks of the Shroud with considerable assurance.

It was known to Chifflet that the body which had been laid in the Holy Shroud of Turin had not been washed, and he suggests that the body was covered with blood, confounding here, as many others have done, the colour of oxide of aloes with that of blood. He was aware of the clot of blood visible below the wound in the side, as well as the brown marks on the forearm. He mentions how in the Turin image the hands are shown crossed at the wrists, and he knows the position of the scourge-marks fairly well, showing them as short lines striping the upper part of the breast, the arms and back, much as they are found on the original (see our figure 4).

The conclusions which he draws are not false, although they are incomplete; he has, in short, grasped the fact that the impressions have undergone a reversal from right to left. He has perceived that the simple act of contact did not altogether account for the impressions, and that some other special agent must have been at work for the features to have been reproduced so exactly ; but his suggestion that the Shroud must have been closely folded round the body, so closely as to be almost in the nature of a mould, only complicates the problem.

We quote the passage from his book, page 198.

"In sacrarum Imaginum coloribus, materiam specto et formam : in

The Shroud Of Christ By Paul Vignon D.Sc (Fr) Part 18.

It is a sepia drawing on linen, and we may remark, that in order to reproduce the Shroud as

faithfully as possible, copies were usually made in this medium, to the exclusion of oil-colour or distemper. We know that the original Shroud of Lirey (Turin) is of a fine light fabric. The impressions, therefore, look as if stained on the cloth itself, and such an effect could only have been rendered by water-colour or sepia drawing. This particular copy is simply conceived, but is in marked contrast with others of a less sincere spirit. If the eyes and mouth are shown in positive, the nose has the appearance of being in negative, while the two cheek bones are indicated by the strangely shaped patches which are given also by the painter C in figure 4, and which were one of the striking characteristics of the Shroud of Besançon

The sepia colouring of Pierre Dargent was used in all subsequent copies. At Besançon all the small religious pictures, painted or embroidered, are of a brown colour like sepia. We have seen many such, both in the homes of inhabitants and at the hospital of Besançon. The common stencil-plates, which reproduced holy pictures cheaply on paper were all brown in colour. Monsieur l'Abbe de Beausejour, vicaire general de Tarcheveche, showed us many of them.

To avoid confusion we must refer once more to the Notes Iconographiques published by Monsieur Jules Gauthier in 1883, concerning the Shroud of Besançon At the date of publication the attention of M. Gauthier had not been drawn to certain peculiarities in the reproductions of the Shroud of which he was making a study. He did not perhaps suspect that these peculiarities were capable of disclosing a secret. Being ignorant of the true value of the Holy Shroud of Turin, as indeed every one was until 1898, he did not realize that the Shroud of Besançon was In truth a copy thereof, and he confined his investigations to the archaeological side of the question. For this reason he attached excessive importance to the copy which he reproduces in Plate in of his work, and from which he wrongly traces the origin of all the different religious representations of the same sort, which are so numerous in that part of France. Probably he thought this copy more intelligible than the others. It is by jean de Loisy, engraved in 1630, and is, an the contrary, one of the least faithful. No trace of negative representation is to be found in the features. Even the nose, which, in Chifflet's engraving, and in the painting at the Besançon library, is clearly negative, being represented in positive by de Loisy. The rendering of the body, however, corresponds with that shown in our Plate v.

Other artists of the Loisy family seemed to have made a speciality of the Besançon Shroud; one of them, Pierre, was more faithful in his work. On his Plate 1., M. Gauthier gives a reproduction of this artist's work, executed in 1660. The head is here a rough negative.

To sum up : The Holy Shroud of Besançon is neither more nor less than an inferior copy of the Holy Shroud of Lirey (Turin), which must have been made between the years 1349 and 375- Although it has no artistic merit, it is most valuable to us, being the first definite material evidence relating to the original of Turin. Lt proves that the image of Christ on the original Shroud was in negative long before the fire of 1532. In fact, a very short time after this painting had been executed (as alleged by its enemies) by an artist in the pay of the Charny family, it possessed unmistakably the essential characteristics which mark it today, characteristics which we assert destroy the theory of its having been fraudulently produced by mechanical means, pictorial or otherwise.

The Shroud Of Christ By Paul Vignon D.Sc (Fr) Part 17.

We give here the essential passages

" The Gospels seem to state clearly that Jesus Christ was nailed to the Cross by the palms of His hands. St. Luke says that Jesus Christ, to prove His resurrection, showed His disciples the wounds in His feet and in His hands. Now the hand cannot properly be called the wrist. In the same way Christ said to St. Thomas, 'Behold my hands' In Psalm xxi. 18 the prophet says, ' They have pierced my hands and my feet.' It would give a forced meaning to these passages if we called hands wrists. But the words of the Prophet Zechariah would seem to decide this question altogether, 1 What mean these wounds in the middle of your hands ? ' (Zech. xiii. 6). Tradition has always represented Jesus Christ fastened to the Cross by the palms of His hands, and not by the wrists; and this has been so in all places, in all times, and from the dawning of Christianity to the present century. All the Holy Fathers agree on this. All the crucifixes of the world preach the same text." Our anonymous author finally closes the discussion altogether in favour of the Holy Shroud of Besançon. We will only say this : Figure 4 gives us the backs of the hands, not the palms. There would even be nothing unreasonable in the supposition that the nails were driven in obliquely through the palms to the wrists.

The images on the Holy Shroud of Besançon are so badly executed that far from considering it to be the rival of the Shroud of Turin, it is doubtful whether it can be thought good enough even to be a copy. It was a copy, however, and it is important to establish this fact, as we shall see.

In figure 5 there are three heads, A, B and C.  A is a sketch from the head of Turin as it appears upon the linen cloth, executed by myself; it is, of course, very rough, but correct in detail as far as it goes.

B has been obtained by enlarging to a similar scale a head taken from an engraving of the seventeenth century representing the Besançon Shroud. This engraving is reproduced entire in figure 6.

The third head, marked C, is the similar enlargement of a photograph from one of the copies painted on linen, such as are in the possession of many of the chief families of Besançon.  A photograph of this copy is shown in figure 7.

Let us now compare the three heads. Clearly the black marks correspond in all three. The salient point is the vertical line of the nose, the lower portion of which, in all three heads, grows slightly larger and inclines towards the left of the face. The engraver (more skilful than the painter on the linen), has drawn the eyebrows far apart, as in our own design. The painter, on the contrary, has merely indicated the eyebrows by a horizontal bar above the nose, and has omitted altogether to place the eyes in their sockets, which are indeed badly indicated in the original. The engraver, on the other hand, has reproduced the shape of the eye fairly well, and has designated the eyelids by a line drawn betwixt eye and brow.

Compare also the cheek-bones. In B they are omitted altogether; in C they are enormous. All the copyists of the Besançon Shroud seem to have insisted on giving them undue prominence, see Figure 7. In both B and C the oblique lines on each side of the nose, indicating the pained expression of the hollow cheeks, are clearly marked. In B indeed the engraver has endeavoured to show that the right cheek (left in the drawing) was more swollen than the opposite one.

Now note the drawing of the mouth, which is very characteristic. The engraver, B, places under the nose a large black mark, notched or irregular on the upper edge. In our own sketch this is meant for the moustache, but for the copyist it could hardly have had that signification, for it is difficult to make out even the upper lip. At any rate he gives it as he sees it. The painter, C, does much the same, indicating its droop with careful pains. Lower down, A, B and C all give a light band for the upper lip, and a dark band for the under lip. Lower still, we find another light band which shows the hollow of the chin, and separates the mouth from

the large black patch which shows the prominence of the chin itself. From the chin B and C seem to have intended to show the beard, roughly parted in the middle to indicate the two classic points, which, we may add, are little, if at all, perceptible in the Holy Shroud.

We think that after this examination it will be admitted that the authors of copies B and C must have worked from the original Shroud of Lirey (Turin). At any rate they have produced all the defects which we know to have been the characteristic of the Shroud of Besançon. There is no doubt, therefore, that the Shroud of Besançon was neither more nor less than a replica of that of Lirey (Turin)—a replica faithful enough in many respects as having been reverently copied, but rough and crude, because the work of unskilful hands.

To demonstrate still further. If the engraver of B and the painter of C judged it necessary to add a neck and shoulders to the figure because they thought it would have been absurd without them, they did not carry their conviction so far as to replace the absent ears. They have, however, outlined the lower jaw, which is not visible in the original.

We see in sketch A that the top of the head, on the right side of the drawing, is much stronger in tone than on the other side. Our own sketch shows that the locks of hair on that side are thicker and more marked. It is clear that B and C endeavoured at least to copy faithfully. Again, our sketch shows the thickest tress of hair curving upwards from the roots, and this curve is shown with great exactness in the sketches. In nearly all the copies of the Besançon Shroud this peculiarity is observable.

We need not say much about the rendering of the body. All the faults which the anonymous author of the manuscript found with it are here faithfully reproduced ; and this is not through any fault of the copyists, for we are given to understand clearly enough that such faults were visible in the figure on the Shroud of Besançon itself. The engraver B gives perhaps the real aspect of his model more faithfully than the artist employed by Chifflet. In any case he naively places on the right side the lance-wound which Chifflet has placed on the left.

We must not omit to notice the copy of the Holy Shroud, said to have been made by one Pierre Dargent, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, which we reproduce in figure 8. It is almost in the nature of an official document, as it is preserved at the present time in the library of the town of Besançon. It is also the largest copy existing.

The Shroud Of Christ By Paul Vignon D.Sc (Fr) Part 16.

Its author begins by arguing that the stigmata on the Besançon Shroud are very badly indicated. " But why," he says " are the wounds on the head made by the crown of thorns, only dimly visible ? How is it that not the least mark of scourging can be seen ? The arms and chest could not have escaped being flayed by the lash, and yet the marks left by those portions of the body are not stronger than the marks from the legs and thighs. None of these details have been forgotten in the Holy Shroud of Turin. Why did not the blood which flowed down from the wound in the side leave no stain, as it did on the wound itself and its immediate vicinity ?—as it did also in the clots painted like drops on the hands and feet. If the body had been washed, is it likely that the marks of blood would have been washed away in some places and left in others ? " (Folio 60.)

He then expresses surprise that only the front aspect of the body should appear, and points out that in the Shroud of Turin there are both front and back impressions (folio 61). He considers the image of Besançon to be as unnatural in form as it is ugly in appearance, and adds : " Why are these impressions drawn with such regularity ? The human body is not made like a stick, straight up and down ; the shoulders should be broader than the head, the neck, less wide than the loins or the knees. The head of a man is spherical, not flat like a mirror ; the features, the nose in particular, stand out in relief, some higher, some lower than others. The cloth which covered the sacred countenance of Jesus Christ could not have been in contact with all its parts alike. Yet all the impressions are of equal strength. The feet appear to be separated. Yet, surely, they were laid together. The whole figure is in Gothic taste, as I shall proceed to show " (folios 61 and 62).

In folio 65 the author goes on: " In the Holy Shroud the shoulders are shown perfectly square, whilst all the extremities are practically straight lines, just as they are in ancient paintings and stained glass windows in churches of Gothic architecture, good taste, and truth to nature being alike ignored. All which goes to prove that the impression on the Holy Shroud is not natural." (1)

We may quote the passage where our unknown author tells us that in the actual Shroud of Besançon the wound in the breast was shown on the right side, not on the left as Chifflet has it. " On the surface of the Holy Shroud, which has the wound on the right side, it is more distinctly marked than on the other surface. The same with the wounds on the feet and hands. Yet it was not this surface which touched the Holy Body, for then the right side would appear to be the left, just as it is in a print taken from a woodcut or in the reflection in a mirror, showing on the left what is in reality on the right. The artist should have remembered that the impressions on the Holy Shroud would have been stronger on the surface which touched the Holy Body. He has preferred to conform to the pictures of Christ which represent the wound as being on the right side " (folio 64).

Evidently in Chifflet's print it was necessary to put the wound on the left, as they wished to make the figure of Besançon confirm that of Turin, where the wound certainly is on the left side.

We lay stress upon all these blunders, for it is by such that a forger betrays himself. If the clerical contemporaries of Voltaire, who examined the so-called Holy Shroud of Besançon with such open minds, could return to life, we should beg them to criticize freely the Shroud of Turin, feeling sure that their conclusions would be different from those which they arrived at, with regard to the cloth of Besançon.

Let us now return to our examination. It was not only by clumsiness that the author of the Besançon Shroud failed to imitate his model ; he did more ; he pandered to his public. Thus he not only painted the wound on the breast on the right side of the body, and twisted the hands until both were visible, but he deliberately placed in the middle of each hand the marks of the nails, which in the Holy Shroud of Lirey (Turin) are distinctly visible in the wrists.

It may be argued that in Chifflet's engraving the wound is not exactly in the centre of the hands, neither is it in the wrists ; but Chifflet in his description of the Shroud at Besançon asserts that the nails must have pierced the metacarpal bone.

The anonymous author of the manuscript in favour of the Holy Shroud of Besançon devotes folios 38 to 41 to the position of the wounds on the hands. According to him the Holy Shroud of Besançon is glorified by showing the traces of the nails in the place where painters always had placed them, and the Holy Shroud of Turin must be condemned as a forgery. In the Middle Ages—the time of rigid tradition—this fact carried greater weight than in 1700.

(1) The two manuscripts " for and against" were written at different dates. The second has this remark, " Je tiens de M. l'abbe Trouillet que cette dissertation est le resultat de conferences entre lui, le premier professeur Bullet et l'abbe Fleury, chanoine de Sainte Magdeleine."—Signe : Grappin.