Manoppello

Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie. And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

John 20:6,7

The Holy Face (Volto Santo) of Manoppello is a second important burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

The cloth is slightly less well-known than the Shroud of Turin, but it is equally intriguing. The cloth measures only 17 x 24 centimeters, but in earlier times it was very likely larger, namely 31 x 34 centimeters.

The first reports of the existence of a cloth depicting Christ's face date back to 574 AD, on the occasion of its transfer from the small town of Kamuliana, Edessa, to Constantinople. Legend has it that the cloth was one of the burial cloths and that the image of the face originated at the resurrection of Christ. Initially, the cloth was kept by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The cloth has been known by various names, including the Kamuliana Shroud, the Edessa Print, Acheiropoietos (not made by human hands), and the Cloth of Veronica. The latter name derives from "Vera Icon," meaning true image.

A note from the papal registers, dating from 753, states that in that year the Pope carried an image of Christ, not made by human hands, in a procession. From 1208 onward, a procession with the cloth of "Veronica" became an annual phenomenon. The writer Dante also refers to this cloth several times in his "Divine Comedy," emphasizing that it is an imprint of the face of God. The fourteenth-century monk Francesco Petrarch also mentions the cloth in his poems. St. Bridget of Sweden also writes about the face on the cloth because she participated in the procession in 1350. In 1506, a vault was built in the main pillar of the new St. Peter's Basilica, intended for storing the cloth of Veronica. This pillar is still called "the Veronica of Jerusalem." The Latin inscription reads: "In honor of the majesty of the Savior's face, imprinted on the canvas of Veronica, Pope Urban VIII built and adorned this place in the Jubilee Year 1525."

The canvas depicting Christ's face was lost for several years. There are several theories about its theft. The most plausible is that the canvas was stolen around 1608 during a restoration of St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica's treasury contains an empty frame with two broken crystal panels between them, between which the canvas fits perfectly. The story of the canvas's reappearance in Manoppello dates back to 1645. After a few detours, the canvas finally ended up in the church of Manoppello.

The canvas depicting Manoppello's Volto Santo is made of byssus. This is a delicate fabric made from the anchor threads of rare, large shells. The thread shines golden, and there is currently only one woman in the entire world, in Italy, who masters the technique of spinning these threads. Byssus is priceless. The coarse silk structure of Byssus makes it impossible to apply pigment, paint, or anything similar to it. Therefore, the face of Manoppello is a miracle—not made by hands.