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The Holy Mandylion: a Déjà-View

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The Holy Mandylion: a Déjà-View SI Jan Feb 2012 NEW_SI new design masters 11/14/11 12:12 PM Page 17 [ INVESTIGATIVE FILES J OE NI CK E L L Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow and author of such books as Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Relics of the Christ, and Looking for a Miracle. The Holy Mandylion: A Déjà-view t was like déjà-vu. In 2008, in a trav- obviously derives from the fact that eling exhibition called “Vatican veronica is simply a corruption of vera ISplendors,” I had seen the Holy iconica, medieval Latin for “true image” Mandylion, also known as the Image of (Nickell 2007, 71–76). In one revealing Edessa, which was once held to be the fourth-century text of the Edessan leg- miraculous self-portrait of Christ (Nic - end, the image is not claimed as mirac- kell 2009). Now, in Genoa the follow- ulous but instead merely the work of ing year, I was seeing another such Hannan (Ananias), who “painted a por- image and recalling how in the Dark trait of Jesus in choice paints” and gave Ages the Image was said to be able to it to the King (qtd. in Wilson 1979, miraculously duplicate itself—one way 130). to explain how there could be so many Astonishingly, many Shroud of “originals.” Turin devotees, following Ian Wilson Pious Legend (1979, 119–121), believe the “shroud” is the lost original of the Edessan Image! The original, according to legend, was How do they equate the latter’s face- produced for King Abgar of Edessa only image with the full-length, front- after he sent a messenger, Ananias, with and-back bodily images of the Turin a letter to Jesus requesting a cure for the cloth? They imagine the shroud was king’s leprosy. If Jesus was unable to folded so that only the face showed— come, Ananias was instructed, he was to never mind its lack of record for over bring the holy man’s portrait instead. thirteen centuries, a bishop’s report of Figure 1. The author poses with the Holy Face of Genoa—one of two said to be the Edessan Image, or Mandylion—an al- But as Ananias attempted to paint a the forger’s confession, pigments and legedly miraculous self-portrait of Christ. (Author’s photo) picture Jesus himself intervened, wash- paint that make up the image and ing his face in water and inexplicably “blood,” and radiocarbon dating to the tinople in 1204 by crusaders. One, the imprinting his visage on a towel—hence time of the forger’s confession: about Parisian Mandy lion, was acquired by the name Mandylion, a unique word of the middle of the fourteenth century King Louis IX in the thirteenth cen- Byzantine Greek coinage describing a (Nickell 1998; 2007). tury and became lost in 1792, probably holy facecloth (Wilson 1979, 272–290; Competing Mandylions destroyed in the French Revolution. Vatican 2008). Of the two surviving examples, the Alas, this legend is unknown before According to the authoritative source Vatican Mandylion has no certain his- the fourth century; moreover, there are The Dictionary of Art (Turner 1996), the tory prior to the sixteenth century. In conflicting versions. One attributes the Edessan Image “entered Christian 1517 the nuns of San Silvestro in Image to the bloody sweat exuded by iconography during the 11th and 12th Capito were reportedly forbidden to Jesus during his agony in the Garden of centuries, first in manuscript picture cy- exhibit it so that it would not compete Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). A later leg- cles that were elaborated to accompany with their church’s “Veronica” (Wilson end holds that a woman named Veron- narratives of the Edessan legend and 1991). The Vatican now concedes (in ica, who pitied Jesus as he struggled then as part of a fixed scheme of images the official Vatican Splendors exhibit with his cross on the way to his cruci- in church decoration.” Three of these text [Vatican 2008]) that “. the fixion, gave him her veil or kerchief “original” Mandylions have received the Mandy lion is no longer enveloped with which to wipe his bloody, sweaty most attention, each supposedly having today by any legend of its origin as an face. In fact, however, this made-up tale been the very one brought to Constan- image made without the intervention Skeptical Inquirer | January / February 2012 17 SI Jan Feb 2012 NEW_SI new design masters 11/14/11 12:12 PM Page 18 two Mandylions (Table 1—based on M A N D Y L I O N S Vatican 2008; Bozzo 1974; Wolf 2005). CRITERIA Vatican Genoese Indeed, the images themselves, as Radiocarbon date [None] 1240–1280 they now appear to the eye, are remark- Verifiable provenance From 1517 From 1362 ably alike. Measurement ratios—in - volving the most critical areas: the eyes, Painting medium Tempera (unconfirmed) Egg tempera lengthy nose, and mouth—are strik- Support Linen affixed to wood Linen affixed to wood ingly similar. Therefore, when photo- panel (cedar) panel (cedar or poplar) graphs of the images are brought to the Process of execution Has image corrections Retouched image on cloth (e.g., nose once shorter) covers original painted on wood same scale (based on inter-pupillary 1 1 distance), those features effectively su- Inner frame About 11 /2 ǂ 8 inches. About 11 /2 ǂ 8 inches. measurements perimpose, as I determined by using computer-generated trans parencies. Positions of rivet holes [Match Genose frame] [Match Genose frame] (despite different frames) (These were prepared by CFI Libraries Director Tim Binga using photos taken Date of frame Uncertain; mounted in 1623 14th-century style baroque reliquary by art experts [Wilson 1991, plates 13 (by Francesco Comi) and 14]. However, the lack of a forensic scale in each prevents reaching a defi- Table 1. Summary comparison of the Vatican and Genoese Mandylions. nite conclusion as to whether tracing might have been involved.) of human hands. ...” I understand this in egg tempera, the Vatican apparently Conclusions to be an admission that not only is the the same) on linen cloth that has been Vatican version merely an artist’s ren- glued to a wood panel (Vatican 2008; Since the prototypical image for the dering but that such is true of all Church of St. Bartholomeo degli Ar- later Mandylions and “Veronicas” first Mandylions. meni 2009; Wilson 1991, 113–114, appeared in Constantinople in the tenth This brings us to the other surviving 137–138). However, both X-rays and century, many copies have been made. image, the Genoese Mandylion. It, too, tomography (an X-ray technique In one known seventeenth-century in- lacks meaningful provenance. It is al- where by selected planes are pho- stance, no fewer than six “exact” facsim- legedly traceable to the tenth century, tographed) reveal that the Genoese iles were carefully made. Such replicas but its verifiable history dates only from image-bearing cloth covers an original could later be mistaken for or misrepre- 1362. At that time Byzantine Emperor image painted on wood (Bozzo 1994). sented as the original, as happened, for John V donated it to Genoa’s Doge Also, the Vatican’s on-cloth image example, with one that was specially Leonardo Montaldo after whose death shows alterations (in X-rays and reflec- made and sent to plague-ridden Venice in 1384 it was bequeathed to the Ge- tographic and thermographic photo- in the 1470s; it later be came known as noese Church of St. Bartholomew of the graphs), especially in the nose, which the Holy Face of Alicante in Spain Armenians. It arrived there in 1388; that was originally shorter, “so that the image (Wilson 1991, 101–108). is where it remains and where I pho- originally must have had a different Perhaps this is what occurred in the tographed it (Figure 1), displayed in a physiognomy” (Vatican 2008, 58). case of the two existing Mandylions. gilt-silver enameled frame of the four- In 1996, the Vatican Museum’s ex - The Genoese image, with its older teenth-century Palae ologan style. perts concluded (according to Vati can provenance and two-stage creation, ap- Interestingly, fragments of ancient 2008, 58): pears to be the earliest. Its original image was certainly an artist’s copy, Persian and Arabian fabrics were found The version in the Vatican and the stuck on the back of the Genoese icon one in Genoa are almost wholly iden- since it was painted not on cloth but di- panel. The Arabian fragment is from tical in their representation, form, rectly on the wood panel. (One source the sixteenth century, whereas the fig- technique, and measurements. In- reports that it has the same dimensions ural silk Persian one has been attributed deed, they must at some point in their as the missing central panel of a triptych history have crossed paths, for the in the St. Catharine’s Monastery at to the tenth century on stylistic rivet holes that surround the Genoese grounds. However, radiocarbon testing image coincide with those that attach Mount Sinai [Wolf 2005].) of the wood gave a more reliable date the Vatican Mandylion to the cut-out Vatican experts acknowledge the ev- range of 1240–1280 (Wolf 2005). sheet of silver that frames the idence suggesting that their Mandy lion image. ... So this silver frame, or one Similarities is “a later replica of the one now in like to it must also have originally Genoa; that it was produced in the covered in the Genoa. Both the Vatican and the Genoese fourteenth century, when the Genoese Mandylions are painted (the Genoese See my summary comparison of the version .
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