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

A leading figure in the art world unravels the mystery of the world’s most controversial relic.

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.