Author: hughfarey

Fire and Water… and Wax

On the night of 4 December 1532, the Chapel at Chambéry caught fire, and the reliquary containing the Shroud was badly damaged. According to Filiberto Pingonio, who was a senior cleric at the Chapel at the time, and may have been an eye-witness, four men rescued the reliquary, but not before the precious relic within […]

STuRP Revisited

INCEPTIONMuch of what we know about the material composition of the Shroud and its markings is derived from the investigation held between 2 and 9 October 1978 by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (originally STRP, then usually STURP, now more commonly STuRP, occasionally, and erroneously, S.T.U.R.P.). This was a loose association of between thirty […]

iiij elles & qt

Item, a playne aulter cloth’ Mked wt sylke, in the Middis or lorde beyng in the sepulcre, in lenth’e iiij elles & qt. The item above is listed in an incomplete inventory dated about 1523, from the Church of St Mary at Hill. It was published among a group of medieval inventories of the church, under […]

Neither Science nor Catholic

A review ofA Catholic Scientist Champions the Shroud of TurinBy Gerard Verschuurenpublished by the Sophia Institute Press, New Hampshire Gerard Verschuuren is a card-carrying biologist specialising in genetics, and must have a fine, practical working knowledge of scientific method. However, since the turn of the century he has concentrated on books linking Science with his […]

The Wrong St Vincent

In Pierre Barbet’s book, A Doctor at Calvary, appears the following passage: Saint Vincent of Lérins (Sermo in Parasceve) was to write at a later date: “Coronam de spinis capiti ejus imposuerunt, nam erat ad modum pilei, ita quod undique caput tegeret et tangeret – they placed on His head a crown of thorns; it […]

The New Microbiome

A review of The Jesus Microbiome,An Instagram from the First CenturyBy Stephen J. Mattingly and Roy Abraham Varghesepublished by the Institute for MetaScientific Research, Texas The idea that the Shroud owes much of its interest to bacteria was first explored in a paper entitled “A Problematic source of Organic contamination of Linen”, by Harry Gove, […]

Giotto’s Jesus

The face that lies, eyes closed in death but very present in its immediacy, facing us in the negative of the Shroud of Turin, was envisaged by a craftsman in the late 13th or early 14th century. If there was a definitive likeness to follow, then he should best have followed it, or people would […]

The Day I Changed My Mind

Until a few years ago, I was as keen to believe in the authenticity of the Shroud as any devout authenticist, and had mounted two exhibitions to illustrate the evidence in favour of it. I had carried out some experimental confirmations of some ideas about the scourging and crucifixion, and had a letter about a […]