Religious Prodigies and Historical Criticism
Marco Corvaglia's website
Proof of the Existence of the Shroud Prior to the 14th Century? The Pray Codex Illusion
di Marco Corvaglia
Go to the previous page: The Appearance of the Shroud and Attempts to Bridge Thirteen Centuries of Silence
A codex that's not at all mysterious
The anointing of the Body of Christ, miniature, 1192-1195, Pray Codex, Széchenyi National Library, Budapest (OSZK MNy 1, f. 28r).
Sindologists (who, in fact, constitute a community of scholars seeking to prove the authenticity of the Shroud) presume the existence of the Shroud prior to its appearance in Lirey in 1355-1356, based on several artistic artifacts from the 12th century, which they believe are derived from the Shroud.
Specifically, they refer to the so-called Pray Codex, a Hungarian manuscript containing a miniature from 1192-1195 depicting two scenes they describe as apparently “inspired by the Shroud” [A. Caccese, E. Marinelli, L. Provera, D. Repice, Il Mandylion a Costantinopoli (English version available online), in E. Marinelli (a cura di), Nuova luce sulla Sindone, Ares, 2024, p. 110].
The upper scene depicts the anointing of Christ after being removed from the cross.
Sindologists insist that, similar to the Shroud, “the body is completely naked and the hands cross to cover the lower abdomen” [ibid.]. Additionally, “the hands of Christ are depicted without the thumbs” [ibid., p. 111].
Let's take a closer look at all the similarities mentioned by sindologists.
Nudity
The first to bring the Pray Codex to the attention of sindologists was Ian Wilson in his 1978 book, The Turin Shroud.
Since then, sindologists around the world have repeatedly stated (erroneously) that the Shroud of Turin which depicted a naked and dead Christ was, in an artistic sense, an anomaly in the Middle Ages. As a result, the nudity in the Pray Codex could only be explained by assuming knowledge of the Shroud on the part of the artist.
For example, noted French sindologist (with university education in the field of law) Tristan Casabianca, in a 2023 study published in Sindon, the journal of the International Center for Shroud Studies (an organization officially recognized by the Archdiocese of Turin), writes:
Sometimes, artists represented Jesus naked in the 12th century– for example, the depictions of the baptismal scene. In the third and fifth centuries, a couple of Christian Fathers imagined the nakedness of Jesus during or after the Crucifixion (Pietro Savio, Sindon, 1960, 3, p. 18-19). However, the pictorial representation of his post-crucifixion nudity does not appear until the end of the 14th century. The main reason is that the authors of the Gospels do not mention Jesus’ nudity during the Passion. So why would a 12th-century artist take this initiative?
[Tristan Casabianca, The influence of the Pray Codex in the debate about the Shroud of Turin, "Sindon", no. 7, July 2023, p. 29]
These are incorrect statements that now need to be refuted in a documented manner.
In reality, the idea that Jesus was crucified (and consequently removed from the cross) naked was a common religious thought in the Middle Ages, generally speaking, and in particular in the Late Middle Ages (based on the Gospel account that the soldiers divided Jesus' garments) as well as on several versions of the apocryphal Acts of Nicodemus that go into explicit detail on the subject.
For example, it's an idea that existed in the 12th century in the writings of Theophylact and St. Anselm [cf. P. Savio, Prospetto sindonologico, "Sindon", II, 3, August 1960, p. 28], in the 13th century in the various works of St. Bernard (Vitis mystica, II, 3 among others), and in the anonymous poem Vita beatae virginis Mariae et Salvatoris rhytmica [v. 4986];
"references to Christ hanging nude on the cross abund in Franciscan texts in the later duecento" [A. Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 30].
In the first half of the 14th century, references to the naked, crucified Jesus are found in a variety of passages in the Revelationes Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden [VII, 15, 1; VII, 21, 11; XI, 18, 16; XII, 17] and in the reflections of Henry Suso [H. Suso, A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, ch. XV].
Even at the iconographic level, as we're about to see, there are plenty of examples of Jesus being naked during and after the crucifixion, yet the principle remains of somehow concealing his private parts (which would remain so until Michelangelo).
In the miniatures of the 11th-century Gospel Book preserved in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, there are two examples of a completely naked Jesus being removed from the cross (his left hand or Nicodemus conceal his private parts).
Miniatures depicting the removal of Christ, 11th century, Evangeliario, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Plut. 6, 23, ff. 96r e 163r).
In some cases Jesus wears only a loincloth that's artificially transparent with strategically-placed knots or other methods that hide what needs to be hidden.
It's clear that this is purely a contrivance, on par with others, to nevertheless account for his nudity.
In the East, one of the oldest examples of this type is found in the Monastery of St. Catherine of Mount Sinai, Egypt, and dates back to approximately 1100:
Crucifixion with saints, tempera on panel, c. 1100, Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai [cf. A.W. Carr, Icon with the Crucifixion, in H. C. Evans, W. D. Wixom (ed.), The Glory of Byzantium. Art and Culture in the Middle Byzantine Era, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1997, pp. 372-374].
In the West, an example from the 11th century can be found in the Abbey of Sant'Angelo in Formis, in Italy:
Crucifixion (detail), fresco, 11th century, Cassinese School, Abbey of Sant'Angelo in Formis, Capua.
An example from the 12th century comes from the Church of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia (it's a fresco that's well known, as it's systematically and unjustifiably presented in sindological publications as an example of another alleged work inspired by the Shroud):
Lamentation over the Dead Christ, fresco, 1164, Church of St. Panteleimon, Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia.
The crucifix in the Spoleto Cathedral also dates to the 12th century:
Alberto Sotio, Christ Crucified with the Madonna and St. John the Evangelist, panel, 1187, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Spoleto.
Between the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, due to the momentum of Franciscan spirituality with its Hierolaminian motto nudus nudum Christum sequi ("naked to follow the naked Christ”), crucifixes on which Christ is covered merely by a sheer loincloth multiply (purely by way of example, Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini, Segna di Bonaventura, Pietro Lorenzetti, Roberto d'Oderisio, proponents of the school of Pietro Cavallini).
In this regard, art historian Anne Derbes notes that “the translucent loincloth approximates nudity as closely as decorum would allow in the thirteenth century” [Derbes, p. 31].
In other examples, the loincloth has no strategic knots or is completely absent. Various contrivances are then resorted to, such as a simple lack of details.
This miniature, circa 1255, depicts Jesus, who, ascending the cross, turns his torso toward an executioner who strips him:
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Christ Stripped as He Ascends the Cross, miniature, c. 1255, Stiftsibliothek, Melk (ms. 1833,. f. 47v).
Here's a 13th-century anointing of the body of Jesus from Spain:
Preparing Christ's Body for Burial, tempera on panel, 13th century Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This is a painting from the Rimini School from the early 1300s:
Rimini School, Crucifixion, painting on panel, 1310-1320, Alte Pinakothek, Monaco di Baviera.
Here is a painting by Pietro Lorenzetti, from the same period:
Pietro Lorenzetti, Crucifixion, tempera and gold on panel, first half of the 14th century, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena.
Let's take a look at two English miniatures:
Christ nailed to the Cross and Crucifixion, miniatures, 1320-1330, Holkham Bible Picture Book, British Library (add. 47682, ff. 31v e 32).
A painting from Spain:
Polyptych with scenes from the life of Christ (detail), 1345-1350, Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
Other times, we see the theme of only one of Christ's hands (the one facing the viewer) covering the lower abdomen:
Giovanni Baronzio, Stories of the Passion of Christ (detail), tempera on panel, 1330-1340, Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Rome.
Occasionally, it's Our Lady or Mary Magdalene who covers Christ's lower abdomen with her own veil:
Jean Le Noir, Deposition, miniature, 1375-1380, Horae ad usum Parisiensem, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (Département des Manuscrits, Latin 18014, f. 94v).
The alleged inexplicability of the nudity of the Christ on the Shroud and the Pray Codex stems simply from a dehistoricization carried out for decades by sindology, interpreting the images in question according to our modern canons and sensibilities and not according to those of the time in which they appeared.
Crossed Hands
A similar argument applies to crossed hands.
The hands crossed over the dead Christ's groin in the 12th century constituted an emerging artistic convention that would later proliferate in a variety of ways: on the belly or the chest, specifically in the Imago pietatis (also called Christ in piety) in which only the torso of Jesus is seen, dead but upright, leaning against the cross or upright in the tomb. According to some interpretations, this would be a symbolic representation of the elevation of the host during the celebration of mass.
Are there reasons to speculate that the Shroud is the source of this artistic trend?
Absolutely not.
First, in the 12th century, it would have been possible to depict a corpse in this position by simply reproducing current customs.
Regarding burial customs of the Middle Ages, Professors Andrea Augenti (University of Bologna) and Roberta Gilchrist (University of Reading) write:
The corpse was usually placed in the grave in a supine position, with arms fully extended or crossed on the chest or over the pelvis, but many other positions are attested.
[Andrea Augenti, Roberta Gilchrist, Life, Death and Memory, in J. Klápště (ed.), The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, Vol. 2: Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries, Aarhus University Press, 2011, p. 504]
However, it must also be said that this similarity, while suspicious, does not automatically prove that the Shroud is medieval.
Cultural anthropology teaches us that in various human societies, among burial positions, we see the lower arms crossed at the chest or the pelvis [cf. C. Riley Augé, Field Manual for the Archaeology of Ritual, Religion, and Magic, Berghahn Books, 2022, p. 73], and a few rare instances of the deceased with hands crossed over the pelvis have actually been uncovered by archaeologists among Jews, however, only in Qumran (during excavations conducted in the 1950s).
What we're now interested in emphasizing here is this: The oldest manifestations of the artistic trend we're speaking of (including, precisely, the Pray Codex) present a significant difference from the Shroud, in that the backs of both of Jesus' hands are systematically visible (on the Shroud, by contrast, one hand fully covers the back of the other).
In sequence: Mourning over the Dead Christ, detail of an early 12th-century Byzantine ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Nicholas of Verdun, Burial of Christ, enamel on gilded copper, 1181, Abbey of Klosterneuburg; Christ in Piety, miniature, c. 1265, Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Clm 23094, f. 7v).
The hands of the Man of the Shroud.
As such, there isn't the slightest basis for either affirming or hypothesizing the origin of the Shroud from this custom.
Note that in the 1300s, the century in which the Shroud appeared, the tendency to present the hands of the dead Christ crossed would be even more widespread (but more on this in the next article).
The hidden thumb
Equally common (see previous images) is the non-visibility of the thumb, which also characterizes some versions of Christ in Piety from the 1300s (for example, the one created by Pietro Lorenzetti around 1340-1345 and preserved in the
Lindenaum-Museum di Altenburg or the one by Naddo Ceccarelli from approximately 1347, now in the Liechtenstein Museum di Vienna).
As such, even an artist creating the Shroud could have conformed to this trend.
This convention stems from a mode of representation (not specific to Jesus) that occurs whenever the artist portrays the finger hidden by the palm of the hand (even in the Pray Codex itself, the thumb on Nicodemus' left hand, pouring the aromas, and on John's right hand, end up completely hidden).
The non-existent trickle of blood
Sindologists argue further:
On the forehead there is a sign that remembers the analogous trickle of blood that can be observed on the Shroud.
[Caccese, Marinelli, Provera, Repice, p. 111]
The world leader of sindology at the turn of the 20th century, Ian Wilson, is even more explicit:
Just over Jesus's right eye there is a single forehead bloostain. Delineated in red, this is located in exactly the same position as that very distinctive reverse '3'-shaped stain on Jesus's forehead on the Shroud.
[Ian Wilson, The Shroud: Fresh Light on the 2000-Year-Old Mistery..., Bantam Books, 2010, p. 243]
The face of the Man of the Shroud and the Christ of the Pray Codex.
Professor Andrea Nicolotti has already pointed out:
That marking is an indistinct smudge, which is not similar to the epsilon in terms of its shape or its position (on the Shroud it is at the center of the forehead). Furthermore, when the miniaturist wants to represent the bloodstains, as he does in the enthroned Christ on the next page, he uses another color, bright red, the same that he uses for haloes. Other discordances are more obvious: Jesus has neither a long beard nor a mustache like the man of the Shroud, and the part in his hair is not in the middle but moved to the left side of the forehead. On his body the wounds of nails, scourges, and lance are missing, which on the Shroud stand out because of the evident flow of blood.
[Andrea Nicolotti, The Shroud of Turin: The History and Legends of the World's Most Famous Relic, Baylor University Press, 2019, p. 409]
Moreover, it would be hard to believe that the miniaturist set out to depict a small wound on the forehead, having neglected all the others.
In fact, he didn't depict it, as I will now demonstrate in a very simple way.
The miniature in question is distinguished by the use of only two colors (other than the one used to outline the figures): blue and red minium.
The spot on the forehead is rust-colored. There are others. A very similar one is located near a corner of the flat surface on which Jesus is placed (see the following image, taken from the original photo on the National Széchenyi Librery website):
It's clear that these are stains resulting from the aging of the parchment.
There are several types. In the this case, it would appear to be classic foxing, as described in an academic textbook regarding the bio-deterioration processes of historical materials:
The study of the chromatic changes found on paper (but also on textiles, photographs and parchment), commonly known as foxing or fox spots, is particularly relevant. Foxing (so called because of the similarity of its coloring to that of the fur of the red fox) is a complex phenomenon that takes the form of small, isolated rust-colored, brown, or yellow spots of various shapes.
[G. Pasquariello, P. Valenti, O. Maggi, A. M. Persiani, Biodeterioration Processes in Relation to Cultural Heritage Materials, in G. Caneva, M. P. Nugari, O. Salvadori, Plant Biology for Cultural Heritage: Biodeterioration and Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute, 2008, pp. 110-111]
Herringbones and holes?
The empty tomb, miniature, 1192-1195, Pray Codex, Széchenyi National Library, Budapest (OSZK MNy 1, f. 28r).
The lower scene depicts the mirophores, the three women (the so-called three Marys) who go to the tomb with anointing oils and find an angel pointing to an empty cloth with his hand.
According to sindologists, in the Codex Pray, it's folded in two and, like the Shroud of Turin, is long and narrow.
The canonical interpretation of the sindonologists, reaffirmed in 2017 at the International Congress on the Shroud held in Pasco (Washington, USA), is as follows:
The top of the empty sheet has a design that imitates the “herringbone” fabric of the Shroud, while small red crosses cover the bottom. [...] On both parts of the cloth, there are some circles, arranged in the same sequence as a group of four burning holes that on the Shroud is repeated four times.
[Caccese, Marinelli, Provera, Repice, p. 111]
These claims are unwarranted for many reasons.
Close-up view of the Shroud's fabric (Source: Shroud Scope).
First, we note that in order to observe the herringbone pattern, we'd have to look at the cloth very closely.
As a consequence, according to sindologists' arguments, in the 12th century it was possible to view the Shroud from head to toe and up close, so much so that an anonymous Hungarian miniaturist could have been inspired to reproduce such a minute feature.
How is it then that no historical source prior to the 14th century unequivocally refers to this exceptional burial cloth?
Second, the lines on the miniature can, in no way, resemble a herringbone fabric as can be perceived by the naked eye. How can horizontal lines represent the diagonal lines of a fishbone?
Third, the direction of the pattern does not match either because in the Shroud, the fibers draw a pattern that runs (as is obvious, given the weaving method) longitudinally, whereas in the miniature, except for a small band near the edge, the pattern is perpendicular to the long sides. Such a close observation of the cloth only to get the direction wrong?
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Poker Holes [Giandurante photo, 2002, (source: Shroud Scope)].
As for the circles, they do not have the characteristics of so-called poker holes, the holes on the Shroud (and it's not known exactly from when; it's known only that they were there in 1516) that are likely due to something very hot (incense coals?) falling on the cloth while it was folded in four.
The circles in the miniature do not repeat symmetrically on the left and right (however, sindologists might speculate, albeit unpersuasively, that the cloth is depicted with a longitudinal fold); they are also not overlapping (in the Shroud, all four series are, above and beyond the fact that the holes become smaller as they go down layer by layer) and are oriented and positioned differently than on the Shroud (in the event we assume a longitudinally-folded cloth, this would mean that in the Codex Pray, the long side of the series of alleged holes in the upper strip would extend from the center of the cloth toward the edge, which in no way corresponds to what is seen on the Shroud).
Additionally, even in the unlikely event that the miniaturist or whomever, for that matter, had seen the Shroud with the holes in it in the 12th century, it would not have made much sense to reproduce them in a drawing that was meant to recall a moment from 1,200 years earlier.
Note that, by contrast, there is no Shroud image on the cloth, which the miniaturist would have believed was there after the resurrection, if he had actually seen the Shroud.
But it's not a cloth...
The fact is that, in reality, what's depicted in the lower scene is not the two edges of the shroud, as sindologists continue to say - far from it.
Note, just as an example, two other miniatures from the period depicting the discovery of the empty tomb. For ease of comparison, I'll once again display the Pray Codex.
The first one dates back to approximately 1170 (Getty Museum, Los Angeles, ms. 64, f. 111) and the second to approximately 1260 (Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, 0054).
Comparison with the plethora of lower-medieval depictions of superior artistic quality but with the same subject matter makes it perfectly clear how the shoddy and approximate miniature of the Pray Codex should be interpreted
As Professor Nicolotti observes,
The whole sindonological argument collapses when the medieval iconography of the women at the tomb is taken into account. The standard depiction comprises the three women with the spices and the angel on an uncovered and empty tomb, which is depicted as a sarcophagus with its lid overturned and placed crosswise.
[Nicolotti, p. 411]
Consequently,
there has never been any doubt, not even among Hungarian art historians, that in the Pray Codex we see the stone slab of the sarcophagus, decorated in a manner evoking Byzantine style, and not a shroud. The shroud is also featured in the drawing: it can be clearly seen wadded up atop the lid of the sarcophagus, which is itself placed sideways facing the beholder. A simple iconographic study of the motif of the three Marys at the tomb would be sufficient to see that the ways of depicting and decorating a slab of a sarcophagus are virtually endless: circles, rhombuses, squares, reticulation, dots, crosses, flowers, lozenges, colored veins, combinations of various colors and figures...
[Ibid., pp. 413-415]
Circles are also used in a decorative manner on the angel's belt and on the robes of one of the women. It's also true that the graphic symbols in question seem to lack the symmetrical counterparts that are characteristic of decorative elements, but it must be considered that neither the cover nor the sarcophagus is entirely visible. Additionally, the circles can also be a stylized representation of natural veining. Unfortunately, the poor artistic quality of the miniature doesn't help.
In this Venetian miniature, one can clearly see the veining (in many cases, circular) of the marble block on which the angel sits:
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The Mirophores, miniature, late 13th century, detail from the diptych from the History Museum in Bern, inventory no. 301 (image taken from P. Huber, Image and messsage. Miniatures byzantines de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, Atlantis, 1975, p. 178, fig. 19d).
Examples of the natural veining in marble.
Of course, our mediocre miniaturist failed to render the depth of the sarcophagus, but this was not uncommon for a time when there was still no codified technique for representing perspective.
Here are two more examples of miniaturists who experienced similar difficulties:
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Lectionary, 1070-1090 (ms. M.780, f. 31r) and Book of Hours, 1204-1219 (ms. M.739, f. 24r).
The miniaturist of the Pray Codex also had great difficulties in effectively representing the position of the angel, who should be sitting on the stone placed sideways from the lid, which he partially covered with his robe.
As much as the far left side of the miniature is faded, one can still clearly see that the cover also extends to the angel's shoulders.
Also note from the opposite side, the edge of the lid which protrudes externally: If it were fabric, it would be limp; it couldn't remain rigid.
There can be no doubt that the only possible interpretation of the image is as follows:
A matter of method
At this point, it might be very insightful to reconstruct how the sindonologists' interpretation of the Pray Codex came about because it helps to understand the dangers approaching historical documents in an incorrect manner.
In the late 1970s, Ian Wilson, the first sindologist who sought to present the Pray Codex as an argument in favor of the Shroud merely refers to two elements of the upper image (nudity and crossed hands) [Wilson, The Turin Shroud, Book Club Associates, 1978, p. 137], evidently not noticing anything to leverage in the lower image.
For seven years, no one dares to speculate that what everyone knows to be a sarcophagus could be the Shroud. The first to suggest it, timidly and dubiously, is sindologist and biblical scholar Father André-Marie Dubarle in 1985 [A.-M. Dubarle, Histoire ancienne du linceul de Turin, O.E.I.L., 1985, pp. 44-46].
The following year, one of his correspondents pointed out the circles to him, and from then on Dubarle had no doubts [Id, La data delle prime bruciature che si osservano sulla Sindone, "Collegamento pro Sindone", Luglio-Agosto 1986, pp. 37-43]. Other sindologists then followed him.
However, at that time, no one yet noticed the alleged blood stain on the right eye “exactly” in the place of the Shroud stain, as Wilson would write. This would take another six years.
In fact, in 1993, a conference on sindology officially called the “International Scientific Symposium” was held in Rome.
French physician Jérôme Lejeune (whose beatification process is currently under way) issued a report, although he had no expertise in the historical-iconographic field [J. Lejeune, Étude topologique des Suaires de Turin, de Lier et de Pray, in A. A. Upinsky (ed.), L'identification scientifique de l'homme du linceul, Jésus de Nazareth : Actes du symposium scientifique international, Rome 1993, F.-X. de Guibert, 1995, pp. 103-108].
Lejeune adds to the alleged Shroud details that he and other sindologists say that the artist of Pray Codex “knows and expresses” [ibid, p. 105], the “spot on the right-hand side of the forehead” [ibid.].
Thus, over a period of 15 years, from 1978 to 1993, construction of the sindological interpretation of the Pray Codex miniature was essentially completed.
Once again, we must note that the self-regulating critical mechanisms appropriate to scientific disciplines were not put in place. Instead, it was merely a gradual layering of someone's authenticist interpretations.
In 1954, American essayist Darrell Huff wrote, ““if you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.”
The same thing can happen with historical documents.
The question begs to be asked: If there were actual historical indications that the Shroud existed before the 14th century, would there be a need to resort to all this?
To be continued
Marco Corvaglia
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