The Shroud of Turin

Andrea Nicolotti’s The Shroud of Turin is a first class historian’s analysis of the fraught history of the appearance of the Shroud of Turin in the medieval period, its various travels before reaching Turin, the creation of the myth of authenticity, and the radiocarbon analysis of its medieval fabric. This is the serious historian’s counterpart to The Da Vinci Code.

~John S. Kloppenborg, University Professor and Chair of Religion, University of Toronto

Andrea Nicolotti has meticulously and proficiently reconstructed events involving the Shroud up to the present day. [It] is a fine book, an exemplary evidence of the value of historical research.

~Adriano Prosperi, Professor of Modern History, Scuola Normale Superiore and Member of the Lincean Academy

Andrea Nicolotti’s book is a work in which the author succeeds with masterful measure and proficiency in the far from simple task of combining questions of the past with the reality of the present. In his informed use of investigative tools drawn from diverse disciplines and fields, the author deploys a refined research technique and an intellectual sensibility, in so doing revealing a rare breadth of approach.

~Pier Giorgio Zunino, Member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin

This book constitutes the very best analysis of the history of the Shroud of Turin and of other competing shrouds, from antiquity to the present day. Relying on a complete reexamination of the documented evidence, this work is a masterpiece in its use of the methods of historical criticism. It is an antidote to the devotional and pseudoscientific literature put in circulation by those who believe in the authenticity of the relic.

~Fr. Pier Angelo Gramaglia, Professor Emeritus of Patrology, Theological University of Northern Italy

Nicolotti’s book is destined to remain for a long time the most complete historiographical assessment on the subject, but also provides some food for thought. For one whose faith is honestly understood, it ought not constitute an obstacle if the historical-archival sciences, the history of weaving, and radiocarbon dating lead to conclusions that appear to point to the unavoidable interpretation that the Shroud of Turin cannot have come to us from the funereal garb of Christ.

~Fr. Francesco Pieri, Professor of Church History, Theological Faculty of Emilia Romagna

The author of this book deserves enormous credit inasmuch as he has inspected everything of significance that has been published to this point and has personally checked the documents present in the archives of the Vatican, Italy, and France, where he also sought out new documents. The book should be recommended to all those who do not wish to be deceived by the numerous current publications in defense of the authenticity of the Turin Shroud.

~Msgr. Armando Rolla, Professor Emeritus of Holy Scripture, Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Southern Italy