Architecture for the Shroud: Relic and Ritual in Turin (review)

It is always a great pleasure to have in one's hand a book from which one may learn a lot. That is the case with the new work of John Beldon Scott about the majestic Chapel for the Shroud behind the Cathedral of Turin. After the fire in the night of April 11-12, 1997, that destroyed a substantial part of this most important baroque architecture in northern Italy, this book has an invaluable importance, even for the restoration that will take still many years until it is completed.

The whole work is divided into three parts and ten chapters. The first part is dedicated to the peregrination of the Shroud from Lirey to Chambéry and from Chambéry to Turin, and to the pilgrims and the manner in which the Shroud was shown to them in the different places. The second part treats of the central object of the book: Guarini's Shroud Chapel and its meaning. The third section shows how the presence and showings of this most important relic had a very strong impact on the urban evolution of Turin as the residence of the Savoy family.

The role played by the "king of the relics" for the Savoy family in its efforts to distinguish itself from other noble families and become a royal house is the real aim and content of the whole book in all its three parts, so that the title of the whole work could be "the Savoy family and its relic" or "the Shroud and its functions in a noble European family." Sometimes the reader encounters this theme a little overstressed and too often repeated.

The very heart and aim of the book is the second part: the history of the construction and the explanation of the meaning and the function of the architecture of the Shroud chapel that was built by the Theatine architect Guarino Guarini. The author shows how this extraordinary architect "operates on the perception of pilgrims . . . alike to expand visually the interior of the chapel as though that space were pressurized by the power of the relic pushing [it] outward to infinity. . ." (p. 133). With the means of the geometric structure of the equilateral triangle, Guarini has created a "high cupola with minimum weight and maximum fenestration" (p. 143).

The author observes for the first time that the introduction of the huge crystal window interrupted the view from the church to the chapel, so that the original thought of the concept of Guarini does not furthermore work on the observer's view. The original plan was to give with purely geometric patterns the same effect in the cupola as the visions of heaven have given the perspective frescoes of the domes since Correggio in Parma.

After all these positive aspects it is very curious to notice that the author sometimes speaks of the faithful only in terms of past times, as nobody "seeing the Shroud" today could have "a spiritually transforming experience" (p. 117). When he mentions the firemen who saved the Shroud in April, 1997 (cfr. p. 319), it is more precise to say that it was only one of them, Mario Trematore, who had the honor of risking his life to save the Shroud.

Besides this excellent and precise explanation of the effects of the Shroud on the architecture of its chapel and on the urban development of the residence town of Turin and of the impact of this relic on the noble Savoy family and millions of pilgrims, there remains one question not even mentioned by the author: could not all of these effects have been produced by a real relic of Christ?