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.
In October 1978, a
comprehensive five day examination of the Shroud was undertaken by
members of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) and others
in the Hall of Visiting Princes within Turin's Royal Palace. During
this time the Shroud photographed in with visible light, low-power X-rays and narrow band
ultraviolet (UV) light. Dozens of pieces of adhesive tape
samples were taken to collect dust, pollen, loose fibers and other
particulate matter from the Shroud. A side edge was unstitched and a
viewing
apparatus was nserted between the Shroud and its backing cloth
to examine the underside, which has not been seen in over 400
years. Baima
Bollone also obtained sample of Shroud's bloodstain by disentangling warp and weft threads in the area of the
image small of
the back.In April 1988, a sample
of the cloth is cut for the carbon 14 dating.
During June and July 2002,
a group of textile experts undertake a restoration of the
Shroud. The following is quoted from Barrie Schwortz'
website:
A small group of textile
experts, headed by Mechtild Fleury-Lemberg of Switzerland, perform
a dramatic and radical "restoration" of the Shroud under the
auspices of the Archbishop of Turin and his advisors at the Turin
Center for Shroud Studies, and with the full permission of the
Vatican. They remove the thirty patches sewn into the cloth by
Poor Clare Nuns in 1534 to repair burn holes from the 1532 fire.
They remove the backing cloth (frequently referred to as the
"Holland Cloth") that was sewn onto the back of the Shroud in 1534
to strengthen the fire damaged relic. They photograph the hidden
back side of the cloth and then re-attach a new, whiter linen
backing cloth. They use lead weights suspended from the edges of
the Shroud to "flatten" many of the creases in the cloth and apply
steam to certain areas to help accomplish this. They handle the
cloth without gloves or special clothing. They scrape away the
charred edges of all the burned areas and collect the scrapings
into small containers. During a continuous period of thirty-two
days, they expose the cloth to significant amounts of potentially
damaging light and the polluted air of Turin. They perform this
restoration in secret, without consulting any of the world's
Shroud experts (including most of their own advisors) that could
have contributed important scientific guidance to ensure that no
valuable scientific or historical data was lost or damaged during
the restoration. They set off a firestorm of controversy,
criticism, debate and recrimination that ultimately engulfs,
polarizes and divides the Shroud research community. For more
information on how this important event unfolded, see the
2002
Website Newspage. You will also want to read
the
Comments On The
Restoration page,
where fourteen noted Shroud experts express their own opinions of
the restoration.
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