Leonardo Da Vinci; Another Shroud Mystery!

"The Holy Shroud of Turin is reputed to be the Shroud in which the dead Body of Christ was wrapped before He was laid in the tomb. Matthew specifies that the Shroud was 'new and clean'; John says that Jesus 'was buried in the manner of the Jews'; Matthew adds that Joseph's tomb was 'his own, and hewn in the rock.' In a recent talk on "The Healing Mystery and the New Testament" Dr Wolfgang C. Schuler, expressed his firm opinion that the Holy Shroud of Christ was in Malta, albeit for a brief time. He said: "Let me show you a few pictures of this out­standing document, the shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Jesus. Later it was transfer­red to Edessa (today URFA, in TURKEY) a flourishing community, of that time, where it became famous as the 'Mandylion' or the "Picture of Edessa". Under dramatic circumstances it came to CON­STANTINOPLE (Istanbul) in 994, where it mysteriously disappeared in 1204 a. Ch. French knights, of the Crusader Order of Knights Templar, the 'Poor knights of Christ of the Temple of SOLOMON', brought it to France; on the way they must have stop­ped at MALTA to take fresh water and food. Today it is kept in Turin, Italy. It really is the first photograph about 1900 years before the invention of photography, because it actu­ally is a photographic negative. . .

" There is in Rabat a large reproduction of the Turin Shroud. It measures 293.5 cm and is 101 cm large; the frame is 7 cm wide. 12 Unfortu­nately little is known of this Rabat Shroud. What we know for certain is that the Archbishop of Tu­rin, Michael Beyamus, testifies in 1663 to its aut­henticity. This is what he states: "To all and every person living at present or in the future, We attest and in truth declare that on the fifteenth day of last May, when the Most Sacred Shroud in which the Most Sacred Body of Christ had been placed by Joseph of Arimathea (which without any doubt is kept in our Metropolitan Church in the Royal Chapel) was being shown to the large number of people frequenting the Church, in the presence of the King of the State of Savoy, the above drawn image herewith attached, was moved near the orig­inal Most Sacred Shroud and We made it touch it(Le. the original) and We guarded it." And, continues Archbishop Beyamus on the same document: "This is the truth. We therefore ordered that these our (letters) signed by our own hand, be made and signed and strengthened by our usual sea1." This authenticated document kept in Rabat bears the date of June 20, 1663; it is signed by Archbishop Michele Beyamus and countersig­ned by Neromi, probably the Notary of the Ar­chdiocese of Turin. Whenever such a reproduction was ob­tained, the Shroud was held in veneration by the faithful. We find such reproductions in several countries: there is one in Belgium and another in Argentina; two in France and two others in Portugal; thirteen in Spain and nineteen in Italy, besides the original one in Turin. One of these reproductions held in Spain in­terests us very specially. It was obtained through the good offices of a Grand Prior of the Knights of Malta. Fr Domenico Leone writes: "Francisco Lucas Bueno, Bishop of Malta and Grand Master of the Religion of St John in the year 1650, obtained a copy (of the Shroud of Turin) from the Royal Savoy Family. On October 8, 1652 he sent the Shroud to Saragossa to the Lord Receiver of St John, who in turn entrusted it to Antonio Bueno and Andres Martinez of Campillo de Aragon. These (Bueno and Martinez) gave it to the people of Campillo. This Relic is kept over the altar in a chapel constructed for the purpose and is guarded by two strong doors in gold."

This is all we know so far about the Rabat Shroud when it was still in Turin. Now, when was it brought to Malta? By whom? How was it received? Who received it? What veneration was it given? More patient research may give the answer to these and similar questions. No­thing is known about the Rabat Shroud for the next nineteen years. The relations between the Savoy Royal Family and the Knights of St John were then, as for many years after, excellent. In the National Library of Valletta there are letters sent by Duke Carlo Emmanuele II, and after his death by other Heads of the State of Savoy, to Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner. In 1663, the year of the certificate of the Rabat Shroud by Archbishop Beyamus, on April 30, Carlo Em­manuele II wrote to Cotoner to announce his forthcoming marriage; on June 24, 1664, Carlo informed Cotoner of the birth of his first child, "il primogenito". Nineteen years after the Turin Certificate we find another mention of the Rabat Shroud. The 'Account Books' preserved in the St Paul's Grotto Archives reveal that "On April 13, 1682 two men transported the frame of the most holy Shroud from Valletta to Rabat; they were paid 4 scudi. On the following day, April 14, Master Guglielmo Alfart was paid 5 scudi for measuring and fixing the above mentioned frames in the Sacristy of St Publius." The 'Inventario Generale' under the section 'Mobili della Sacrestia' in 1756 records the pre­sence of "Un Ritratto del SS. Sudario con cornice indorata".This attestation is re­peated in the subsequent 'Inventario' of 1779" So much for the Shroud and its passage in the hands of the Knights through Malta; but what if any is the connection to Di Vinci? Here the plot thickens. In 1204 it is believed that the Crusaders ransacked the city of Constantinople.

Among them were the Knights Templar, whom some scholars contend took the Burial shroud of Jesus from the city. To support this theory, author Ian Wilson who wrote the book "The Shroud of Turin: Burial Cloth Of Jesus?", and whom I had the pleasure of interviewing during my STURP broadcast; makes the claim that "the head that the Templars were accused of worshipping was none other than that of Jesus". He believes that the Shroud when folded in a certain way displayed the head of Christ and was referred to as the "Mandylion." At Templecombe in England there is a painted panel that shows a bearded face like the one on the Mandylion. There is however another theory which suggests that the image on the Shroud of Turin is in fact that of the last Grand Master of the order, Jacques de Molay, who was tortured in a similar fashion to Christ some months before he was executed in 1307. There is no question that the image on the shroud fits the description of De Molay as portrayed in medieval wood cuts, a long nose, long hair parted in the center, a full beard. De Molay was said to be quite tall (six-foot). The fact that Templars were forbidden from growing their hair beyond their shoulder does not rule him out. DeMolay's was imprisoned for over 7 years, so it is only logical that his hair would be long. The theory goes that part of the Templars rituals depicting the resurrection involved wrapping the deceased in a shroud similar to Christ, and that this was what happened to DeMolay's body. It was the Knights practice to use frankincense to whiten the cloth and that this would have mixed with DeMolay's blood, etching his image on the shroud.

This shroud it is believed was put on display by the family of Geoffrey de Charney who was also burned at the stake with DeMolay in 1357, some 50 years after the disbanding of the Knights. It was immediately identified by those viewing the shroud as the image of the crucified Christ. Certainly if the recent carbon dating of the shroud is eventually proved correct, its date is closer to the 13^th century and the crucifixion of DeMolay. You can read more about the DeMolay theory in two books, "The Hiram Key" and "The Second Messiah," by authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. No matter which theory you accept Ian Wilson or Knight and Lomas; it's hard to understand why Dan Brown should not have implicated the Knights in the Shroud mystery. This is especially true if you believe Lynn Picknet and Clive Prince who in their book "Turin Shroud: In Whose Image?" claim that Leonardo Di Vinci actually created a photographic process, and it was he who was responsible for the image of Christ on the Holy Shroud

You can learn more about the history of the Shroud, The Knights Templar, and the mysterious Island of Malta in my book "In the Image of His God - the Curse of the Shroud" ISBN #978-1-4327-2878-6 (http://pjshield.com)