Veil of Veronica

There is an image kept in St. Peter's Basilica purported to be Veronica's veil.[13] This image is stored in the chapel that lies behind the balcony in the southwest pier supporting the dome.

In the 19th century, Xavier Barbier de Montault privately viewed the veil. His account is presented by Adolphe Napoléon Didron in Volume 23 of Annales Archéologiques.[14] He confers, "Unfortunately, by one of these too frequent customs in Italy, a metal blade covers the interior and leaves only the figure, from which it draws the contours. To these contours, frankly accused, we suspect long hair that falls on the shoulders, and a short beard that turns into two little-supplied wicks. The rest of the features are so vaguely drawn, or rather so completely erased, that I needed the best will in the world to see the trace of the eyes or the nose."

In 1907, Jesuit art historian Joseph Wilpert was allowed to remove two plates of crystal to inspect the image.[15][16] He describes only a square fabric of penny hue, yellowed with age, with two large, faint rust-brown stains. He then says the object corresponds to the oldest documents, and cites two of them.

Nevertheless, the face is still displayed each year on the occasion of the 5th Sunday of Lent, Passion Sunday,[17] in a tradition that dates back to the seventeenth century.[18] Just before vespers, there is a procession within the basilica, accompanied to the Litany of the Saints.[19] A bell rings and three canons carry the heavy frame out on the balcony above the statue of St. Veronica holding the veil.[20] From this limited view no image is discernible and it is only possible to see the shape of the inner frame.

In the Hofburg Palace in Vienna there is a copy of the Veronica, identified by the signature of P. Strozzi in the right hand corner of the inner frame. He was the secretary of Pope Paul V, and a man referred to by Vatican notary Jacopo Grimaldi as making a series of six meticulous copies of the veil in 1617.[21]

The outside of the frame is relatively modern, while the inner frame is roughly made and corresponds to the cut-out pattern of earlier copies. The face within is very unclear, more a series of blotches in which only the bare elements of a nose, eyes and mouth can be identified. This argues for the authenticity of the copy as there is clearly no attempt at artistic enhancement. Furthermore, the fact of its being copied from the Vatican copy after the Sack of Rome in 1527 suggests that the original image may have survived that event.

It is kept in the Schatzkammer of Sacred and Secular Treasurers of the Habsburg dynasty in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna.

The Holy Face of Alicante was acquired by Pope Nicholas V from relatives of the Byzantine Emperor in 1453. This veil was given by a Vatican cardinal to a Spanish priest, Mosen Pedro Mena, who took it to Alicante, in southern Spain, where it arrived in 1489, at the same time as a severe drought. Carried in a procession on 17 March by an Alicante priest, Father Villafranca, a tear sprang from the eye of the face of Christ on the veil and rain began to fall. The relic is now housed in the Monastery of the Holy Face (Monasterio de la Santa Faz), on the outskirts of Alicante, in a chapel built in 1611 and decorated between 1677 and 1680 by the sculptor José Vilanova, the gilder Pere Joan Valero and the painter Juan Conchillos. The chapel is decorated with paintings depicting the miraculous termination of the drought, local personalities associated with the founding of the chapel and religious themes of judgment and salvation.

The monastery was extensively restored between 2003 and 2006, together with the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas and the Basilica of St Mary in the city centre. The three buildings housed an exhibition in 2006 about the relic, titled 'The Face of Eternity'.[22]

The cathedral of Jaén has a copy of the Veronica which probably dates from the 14th century, and originated in Siena. It is kept in a shrine by the high altar and is annually exhibited to the people on Good Friday and on the Feast of the Assumption. It is exhibited in a chapel to the side of the Cathedral every Friday from 11.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., when visitors are allowed to kiss the glass that protects the image. Known as the Santo Rostro, it was acquired by Bishop Nicholas de Biedma in the 14th century.[23]

The Holy Face of San Silvestro, now in the Matilda chapel in the Vatican.

Kept in the modest Church of St Bartholomew of The Armenians, Genoa, the Holy Face of Genoa was given in the 14th century to the Doge Leonardo Montaldo by the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus.

The image was studied in detail in 1969 by Colette Dufour Bozzo, who dated the outer frame to the late 14th century,[24] while the inner frame and the image itself are believed to have originated earlier. Bozzo found that the image was imprinted on a cloth that had been pasted onto a wooden board.[25] The similarity of the image with the Veil of Veronica suggests a link between the two traditions.

The Holy Face of San Silvestro was kept in Rome's church of San Silvestro until 1870, and is now kept in the Matilda chapel in the Vatican. It is housed in a Baroque frame donated by one Sister Dionora Chiarucci in 1623.[26] The earliest evidence of its existence is 1517, when the nuns were forbidden to exhibit it to avoid competition with the Veronica. Like the Genoa image, it is painted on board, and therefore is likely to be a copy.

It was exhibited at Germany's Expo 2000 in the pavilion of the Holy See.

The Manoppello Image.

In 1999, German Jesuit Father Heinnrich Pfeiffer, Professor of Art History at the Pontifical Gregorian University,[27] announced at a press conference in Rome that he had found the Veil in a church of a Capuchin monastery, in the small village of Manoppello, Italy, where it had been since 1660. Professor Pfeiffer had, in fact, been promoting this image for many years before.[28] It is known as the Manoppello Image.

According to local tradition, an anonymous pilgrim arrived in 1508 with the cloth inside a wrapped package. The pilgrim gave it to Dr. Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, who was sitting on a bench in front of the church. The doctor went into the church and opened the parcel containing the Veil. At once, he went out of the church, but could not find the pilgrim who had donated it.

The Veil was owned by the Leonelli family until 1608. Pancrazio Petrucci, a soldier married to Marzia Leonelli, stole the Veil from his father-in-law's house. A few years later, Marzia sold it for 400 scudi to Doctor Donato Antonio De Fabritiis to pay a ransom demand for her husband, who was then a prisoner in Chieti. The Veil was given by De Fabritiis to the Capuchins, who still hold it today. This history was documented by Father Donato da Bomba in his Relatione historica following research started in 1640.

• Veronica's Veil Domenico Fetti, c. 1620.
• Holy Face Giambono, 15th century. Civic Museum, Pavia, Italy.
• Holy Face Held by Two Angels Juan Sánchez Cotan, 1620–1625. Monastery of Cartuja, Granada.
• Holy Face Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco). Convent of Capuchin Nuns, Toledo.
• Veronica's Veil Francisco de Zurbarán, 17th century. Parish Church of St Peter, Seville.

• Head of Christ on the Sudarium Claude Mellan, 1649.
• Diptych of Saint Veronica with Christ and the Virgin Mary Bernardo Martorelli, 15th century. Museum of Mallorca.
• Holy Face, anonymous, early 17th century. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
• Holy Face Simon Ushakov, 1678. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
• Miracle of the Tear Juan Conchillos, 1680. Lady Chapel of the Monastery of the Holy Face, Alicante.
• Miracle of the Three faces Juan de Miranda, 1767. Alicante Ayuntamiento.
• Saint Veronica Antonio Castillo Lastrucci, 1946. Basilica of St Mary, Alicante.

• Veil of Veronica in art
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  The Holy Towel by Emmanuel Tzanes 1659
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  St Veronica with the Sudarium
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  The Veil of Veronica by the Master of the Legend of St. Ursula
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  Domenico Fetti, The Veil of Veronica
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  St. Veronica with the Holy Kerchief
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  The veil of St. Veronica (Vera Icon), c. 1450
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  Head of Christ on the Sudarium, engraving by Claude Mellan (1649), a famous virtuoso piece consisting of a single line beginning on the tip of Christ's nose.
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  The Veil of Veronica by Francisco de Zurbarán
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  Image of the Saviour, a traditional Orthodox iconography in the interpretation of Simon Ushakov (1658).
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  Correggio, 1521
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  St. Veronica with the Holy Kerchief, by Mattia Preti