Museo della Sindone (The Holy Shroud Museum)

At the number 28 of via San Domenico there is the Holy Shroud Museum, placed in the crypt of the church of the SS. Sudario in Turin.
The museum was born in 1936 to run through the history of the sheet in which Jesus' mortal remains laid down, and of the scientific researches which had investigated on his image, collecting the relics kept by the SS. Sudario's confraternity.

The Holy Shroud Museum

The new seat was inaugurated on April 15th, 1998, after the restorations which had discovered the structural peculiarities of the suggestive hypogeal space. Now the crypt is animated by virtual frescoes on the Passion theme, screened by 15 machines on the vault and on the niches, which chance slowly but continuously following the visitor.

The museum offers to the visitor a complete information on the researches on the Holy Shroud from the 16th century to present days, seizing the historical, scientific, devotional and artistic aspects.

In the museum are exhibited the official plates of the photographical shooting made in 1888 by Secondo Pia and those taken in 1931 by Giuseppe Enrie, form them, all the following scientific investigations began, and they are documented in the museum, and they have their climax in the amazing three-dimensional image of the face of the Holy Shroud man elaborated by Giovanni Tamburelli in 1978.

A vast space is dedicated to further studies on the material and on its weaving, on the micro-marks (pollens, blood, aloe, myrrh, aragonite), on the forensic investigations, on the prints of the coins left on the sheet and on the iconographic analysis.

A particular section is dedicated to the history (the hypothetical and the real one) of the Holy Shroud and of its worship, lively in Turin and in Piedmont starting from the second half of the 15th century, when the sheet became a property of the Savoy family. The fulcrum of this veneration, shown during the recurrent public ostentations, well documented with a huge iconographical and numismatic material, is the SS. Sudario's confraternity.

Further deepening on the history and the enigmas on the Holy Shroud are collected in the book "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic" (edited by Bernard Ruffin, C. Bernard Ruffin - price $7.25) and in "Portrait of Jesus?: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin" (edited by Omega Books - price $13.57).