La fabbrica dei falsi ovvero la fantastoria templare della sindone di Torino

The presentation of a recent book by Andrea Nicolotti provides a valuable opportunity to examine the procedures of so-called sindonology. In turn, this is the chance to reflect upon a recent, worrying trend by authors, publishers and mass media, who popularise documentary forgeries and arbitrary reconstructions of fictitious historical events. Nicolotti's book develops his useful analyses to examine recent attempts to corroborate two theses, which turn out to be completely unfounded on close examination. The first claims the identification of the Shroud of Turin ‒ whose existence cannot be historically documented before the second half of the XIVth century – and the famous Mandylion, preserved in Edessa and transferred to Constantinople in 944. The second, building upon the first one, aims to demonstrate the acquisition of Jesus' Shroud by the Templars in the second half of the XIIIth century, after it had reached the West as crusaders's spoil stolen during the pillage of the Byzantine capital in 1204. Consequent to this absurd build-up of hypotheses, the mysterious idol, which some Templars under torture during their trial in 1307 confessed to worship in their initiation ceremonies, would be nothing but the burial sheet of Jesus of Nazareth, which has been brought to Turin in 1578 and is still preserved there today.