The Veil of Manoppello

In the small town of Manoppello, in the mountains of the Abruzzo, the Capuchin friars keep a veil about 17 by 24 centimetres, so fine that one can read a newspaper through it. On it is the face of a man with long hair and a forked beard, his eyes open and his mouth slightly parted. The face shows the marks of a beating. Held to the light it almost disappears. Seen against a dark background it becomes clear, and it is visible, reversed, from both sides.

According to a local account written in the seventeenth century, an unknown pilgrim gave the veil in 1506 to a doctor of the town, Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, and vanished. After passing through several hands it was given to the Capuchins, who have kept it since 1638 in the church that is now the Basilica of the Holy Face.

The Jesuit scholar Heinrich Pfeiffer and others have proposed that it is the famous “Veronica” once kept in Saint Peter’s in Rome, the veil with which, according to tradition, a woman wiped the face of Jesus on the way to Calvary. They suggest it vanished from Rome around the time the old basilica was rebuilt. Some have compared its face with the Shroud of Turin. Its material and origin are still debated, and the Church has not pronounced on it.

Pope Benedict XVI came to pray before it in September 2006.

Where

Basilica of the Holy Face (Volto Santo), Manoppello, Italy

When to see it

Displayed above the high altar in a reliquary that can be seen from both sides.

Map

Find it on OpenStreetMap