Veil of Manoppello

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Veil of Manoppello

The Manoppello Veil , also called Volto Santo von Manoppello , is a monochrome late Gothic brush drawing on gauze-like linen , which is believed to be a German work influenced by the Netherlands and was carried out around 1500. The cloth has been venerated as a relic in the Italian city of Manoppello in Abruzzo for centuries .

Description of the veil

The Santuario del Volto Santo in Manoppello
The interior of the church

The Volto Santo (Italian for "Holy Face") is a 17.5 cm wide and 24 cm high veil that has been kept in Manoppello since the 17th century in the Capuchin church Santuario del Volto Santo on the Tarigni hill outside the city. The cloth has been shown above the altar in a double-sided glazed reliquary from the early 18th century since the 1960s . Before that, the reliquary was in a dark side chapel, in which the cloth was barely visible to the viewer. It has not been taken out of the frame for centuries and has so far been examined with the help of microscopes, infrared and ultraviolet light and Raman spectroscopy . The two upper triangular gussets are made of a different material, probably silk , and were apparently added later.

The art historian Pokorny takes the view that the painting belongs to the area of ​​so-called handkerchief painting, a historical painting technique in which watercolors were applied to an unprimed canvas. Paint was applied to both sides of the textile. Therefore one can look at the face from both sides. The front and back are not identical.

The veil shows the face of a middle-aged man, the mouth slightly open. The nose is slightly offset, presumably because the veil fabric is a little warped.

Interpretations of the veil

Religious interpretations

The veil as a cloth from the tomb of Christ

Some authors suspect that the Manoppello veil was a textile that came from the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem together with the Turin shroud and other cloths . However, the number of publications on the Manoppello veil is far fewer than that on the Turin Shroud.

Referring to both the biblical passages Joh 20,1-10  EU and Joh 20,19-23  EU , the structure and the location of the tomb of Jesus as well as the Jewish funeral rites, the journalist Paul Badde claims that the veil coexists with the Turin shroud located in the tomb of Jesus. Therefore there are "two original sources of images of the human face of God". Badde and others consider the Volto Santo to be an image not made by human hands, a so-called acheiropoieton . Badde developed a hypothesis according to which both towels were stored together. To this end, he cites not only the biblical passages mentioned, but also church history texts that, in his opinion, refer to the cloths. Badde concludes that until the 16th century there was an awareness that the two shawls belonged together. While the shroud came to Turin, the Volto Santo was lost during the Sacco di Roma in 1527 and was brought to Manoppello in an unexplained manner. Badde claims that the shawl is made of shell silk .

Interpretation as the handkerchief of Veronica

Hans Memling : Saint Veronica, around 1470

Heinrich Pfeiffer claims that the handkerchief is Veronika's handkerchief . According to tradition, this once most important and most venerated relic of Christendom has been in St. Peter's Basilica since 708 . However, nothing can be seen on the almost black cloth. On the basis of iconographic studies, Pfeiffer comes to the conclusion that the Veronica's handkerchief has disappeared since the old St. Peter's Basilica was demolished in 1508 or the Sacco di Roma in 1527 and has been replaced by another cloth. The Holy See did not confirm this assumption, which had been made earlier.

Art historical interpretation

The art historian Erwin Pokorny critically dealt with three assumptions about Manoppello's veil, which are intended to support its interpretation as the veil of Veronica :

  1. There are no color pigments on the veil.
  2. There is no painting technique that can make a picture disappear in the backlight.
  3. The fabric is made of shell silk.

Pokorny denies all of these assumptions. He accuses Badde of having "distorted" the report by Guilio Fanti (University of Padua) on microscopic examinations and claims that the veil shows "no traces of color". In fact, Fanti detected color pigments, but considered them non-imaging due to their small size. Fantis research has shown that there is paint on both sides of the cloth. The disappearance of the picture in backlight is based on the properties of the picture carrier and not on the painting technique: This fabric has such large gaps between the weaving threads that the light can penetrate between them unhindered. The use of shell silk can be ruled out based on the thread size of the fabric. Shell silk also has a more woolly character; there is also no evidence that a veil was ever woven from it. Pokorny therefore assumes that the fabric of the veil is made of linen or flax fibers. He points out that this Volto Santo corresponds to a style development of the depiction of the face of Jesus, as it took place in Dutch painting.

Pokorny draws the following conclusions from his observations: The object is a Dutch-influenced German small handkerchief painting, executed around 1500 as a brush drawing with water color or ink. The uncertain drawing of the eyes, the flat overall appearance and the use of color indicated that it was executed by an autodidact and gave the picture the character of religious folk art. Overall, he describes the quality of the artistic representation as low.

Scientific investigations

Scientific studies of the veil are difficult because no material samples may be taken. On April 30, 2007, Pietro Baraldi and his team carried out measurements with a Raman microscope, a portable S633 confocal microscope made by Jobin-Yvon. Its results were not published by himself, however, but are only available in the archive of the Santuario del Volto Santo . So far, only paraphrases of this report by third parties have circulated. According to this, Baraldi first discovered that there is no preparatory layer that is common for paintings on canvas. Likewise, no color particles can be found on the material. The measurements did not reveal any spectra of known substances that were used in any painting techniques of the past. Based on the data recorded, Baraldi stated that the spectra resulting from the investigation only indicated the nature of the fiber. The fiber is therefore made of protein and has a certain similarity to spectra that are observed when examining parchment. Pokorny, on the other hand, writes in his article on Manoppello's veil that Baraldi had informed him in writing that he could see traces of color on the veil, but could not detect them spectroscopically.

The authors of a new study summarize Baraldi's results in such a way that he was unable to make any statements about the colors used or the material of the veil. Organic dyes would usually elude a Raman spectroscopic examination anyway because they show no Raman scattering . Your own investigations have shown that the carrier material of the veil due to its optical properties under polarized light is in all probability made of flax linen, in any case cellulose. In addition, the threads of the fabric, with an average thickness of 0.12 mm, are significantly thinner than would be the case with the mussel silk that would otherwise be brought into the field with a thickness of 0.2-0.3 mm.

Worship of the veil

Apart from the granting of a complete indulgence from temporary sin punishments for Manoppello pilgrims by Pope Clement XI. in 1718 the handkerchief was hardly noticed by the church hierarchy. Local tradition says that the Volto Santo was brought to Manoppello around 1506, but it has only been documented there since it was handed over to the Capuchins in 1638 .

It gained national fame in the 1960s and 1970s through the Capuchin Father and then Rector of the Shrine, Domenico da Cese .

On September 1, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI made a pilgrimage . to Manoppello.

literature

  • Werner Bulst , Heinrich Pfeiffer : The Turin shroud and the image of Christ. Volume 2: The real image of Christ. The shroud, the Manoppello veil and their impact history in art. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-7820-0633-X .
  • Karlheinz Dietz u. a. (Ed.): The Christ image. On origin and development in East and West. Files from the congresses in Würzburg, 16. – 18. October 2014, and Vienna, 17.-18. March 2015 (= The Eastern Christianity , New Series, Volume 62). Würzburg 2016, ISBN 9783429041991 .
  • Heinrich Pfeiffer (Ed.): Il Volto Santo di Manoppello. Pescara, Carsa 2000, ISBN 88-85854-88-5 Also: ibid 2005.
  • Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. In: Karlheinz Dietz, Christian Hannick, Carolina Lutzka, Elisabeth Maier (eds.): The Christ picture . On origin and development in East and West. Files from the congresses in Würzburg, 16. – 18. October 2014, and Vienna, 17.-18. March 2015 (= The Eastern Christianity , New Series, Volume 62). Würzburg 2016, pp. 760–786, ISBN 978-3429041991 . ( PDF )
  • Roberto Falcinelli: The Veil of Veronica and the Face of Manoppello: New Studies and Findings . In: Karlheinz Dietz, Christian Hannick, Carolina Lutzka, Elisabeth Maier (eds.): The Christ picture . On origin and development in East and West. Files from the congresses in Würzburg, 16. – 18. October 2014, and Vienna, 17.-18. March 2015 (= The Eastern Christianity , New Series, Volume 62). Würzburg 2016, pp. 719–759. ( PDF )

Web links

Commons : Veil of Manoppello  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Badde: The grave cloths of Jesus in Turin and Manoppello. Wolff Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 75–77, 100–111.
  2. ^ Paul Badde: The grave cloths of Jesus in Turin and Manoppello. Wolff Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 75–77, note 17.
  3. ^ Paul Badde: The grave cloths of Jesus in Turin and Manoppello. Wolff Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 75–77, note 59.
  4. ^ Paul Badde: The grave cloths of Jesus in Turin and Manoppello. Wolff Verlag, Berlin 2014, p. 104.
  5. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. In: Karlheinz Dietz, Christian Hannick, Carolina Lutzka, Elisabeth Maier (eds.): The Christ picture . On origin and development in East and West. Files from the congresses in Würzburg, 16-18. October 2014, and Vienna, 17.-18. March 2015. (= Eastern Christianity. New episode, volume 62). Echter, Würzburg 2016, p. 773, with reference in note 64 to Paul Badde: The divine face in the shell silk scarf by Manoppello. Kislegg 2011, pp. 49-50. Pokorny refers to the microscopic examination by Giulio Fanti ( online ).
  6. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 773.
  7. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 775.
  8. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 776.
  9. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 781, where Pokorny refers to the views of Gerhard Wolf and Urte Krass.
  10. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 786.
  11. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. Pp. 772, 780, 786.
  12. ↑ Falcinelli gives the result of Pietro Baraldi's investigation: Roberto Falcinelli: The veil of Veronica and the face of Manoppello: New investigations and findings . In: Karlheinz Dietz, Christian Hannick, Carolina Lutzka, Elisabeth Maier (eds.): The Christ picture . On origin and development in East and West. Files from the congresses in Würzburg, 16. – 18. October 2014, and Vienna, 17.-18. March 2015 (= The Eastern Christianity , New Series, Volume 62). Würzburg 2016, pp. 719-759 (740-742). ( PDF ); Translation of the unpublished manuscript of Pietro Baraldi's lecture on the investigation of the veil by Manoppello: online .
  13. ↑ Erwin Pokorny: The handkerchief painting and the veil by Manoppello. P. 774.
  14. ^ Liberato De Caro, Emilio Matricciani, Giulio Fanti: Imaging Analysis and Digital Restoration of the Holy Face of Manoppello - Part I. In: Heritage. Volume 1, Issue 2, 2018, pp. 289–305, here p. 292, doi : 10.3390 / heritage1020019 .
  15. ^ Liberato De Caro, Emilio Matricciani, Giulio Fanti: Imaging Analysis and Digital Restoration of the Holy Face of Manoppello - Part I. In: Heritage. Volume 1, Issue 2, 2018, pp. 289–305, here p. 294 f.
  16. ↑ Pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the "Holy Face" in Manoppello (September 1, 2006) | BENEDICT XVI. Retrieved December 14, 2019 .