The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death

by Gary Vikan

The history of the Christian church is strewn with holy relics and artifacts, none more controversial than the Shroud of Turin, the supposed burial cloth of Christ. In The Holy Shroud Gary Vikan shows that the shroud is not the burial cloth of Jesus, but rather a photograph-like body print of a medieval Frenchman created by a brilliant artist serving the royal court in the time of the Black Death.


It was gifted by King John II to his friend Geoffroi de Charny, the most renowned knight of the Middle Ages, who shortly thereafter died at the disastrous Battle of Poitiers while saving the King’s life. Though intended as nothing more than an innocuous devotional image for Geoffroi’s newly-built church in the French hamlet of Lirey, it was soon misrepresented. Miracles were faked, money was made.


Combining copious research and decades of art world experience with an accessible, wry voice, Gary Vikan shows how one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of Christian relics came into being.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 5, 2020

About the author

Gary Vikan was Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore from 1994 to 2013; from 1985 to 1994, he was the museum’s Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Medieval Art. Before coming to Baltimore, Vikan was Senior Associate at Harvard’s Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. A native of Minnesota, he received his BA from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University; he is a graduate of the Harvard Program for Art Museum Directors and the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program.

Reviews

[Tracy Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I worked on early drafts of this book and loved watching Vikan's journey to uncover the truth about The Shroud of Turin. Art, history, and religion geeks will love seeing the mystery unravel as Vikan analyzes when, why, and by WHOM the Shroud was made.

[Reggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting study of the creation and debunking of the mystery of the Shroud of Turin. Author was well researched, but I found the book a bit scattered. I had a theology teacher once discuss some of the evidence against the Shroud and then double back and declare it one of the three pillars supporting Christianity. To this day, I don’t understand what he meant by that lecture. If the topic interests you, this a solid book to check out.

[Jim McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wanders around a bit (I suspect that his family and friends were more interested in his journey than I was) but presents a good history of the shroud and a very plausible explanation (to my non-expert eyes) of how the shroud was produced. I'm glad to have read it. If you're interested in the shroud and have an open mind on the subject, you should find the book interesting.

[Vanni Pulé · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vikan successfully attempts a thorough investigation of the history, surrounded with controversy, of the infamous ‘Shroud of Turin’. His contentions in favour of its recent history are well-documented and highly convincing. What I find unpersuasive, in my modest opinion, are the details of how it could have been manufactured. We can never really know how it was created because we cannot go back in time. But Occam’s Razor would help, here. I find the solution by Prof Luigi Garlaschelli to be more plausible, more practical and less contrived. Nevertheless this book is highly recommended because of its combination of academic writing with clarity, vision and purpose.