The Roman Veronica and the Holy Face of Lucca: parallelisms and tangents in the formation of their respective traditions

In the thirteenth century the civic cult of the Holy Face became the symbol of the libertas of Lucca. Several bishopric indulgences show the importance of worship of the Holy Face and its central role in defining the identity of the city. According to the Legend, Nicodemus sculpted the Face on the image left by Christ’s body on the veil (velamen) used as His funeral shroud. Gervase of Tilbury added that the cloth that covered the whole body of Jesus was placed inside the Holy Face, near the relics of the Passion. He connects the Holy Face to the Veronica and to other images of Christ. The manuscript 490 of the Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, copied in the late 8th or early 9th century, includes the Cura sanitatis Tiberii. A manuscript of Rabanus Maurus’ figured poem De laudibus Sanctae Crucis is preserved in Lucca; however its local origin is unlikely. Romano Silva has underlined the symmetry between the location of the Holy Face in St. Martin's Cathedral of Lucca and that of the Veronica in St Peter’s, both on the right of the entrance; and Emperor Charles IV from Bohemia, who freed citizens of Lucca from the domination of Pisa in 1369, appreciated both cults, and promoted their spread in Prague. The decoration of a manuscript of the confraternity of the Holy Cross, linked to the St. Luke's hospital, reflects the integration between the public devotion to the Holy Face and the new spirituality focused on the devotion to the suffering Christ, and on charity towards the poor. A vernacular version of the Legend, published in Lucca in 1586 and immediately recalled, ends with a reference to the Veronica. The Veronica is represented in two 16th century petitions addressed to the pope by the habitants of Alessandria and Montpellier, and preserved in Tuscan Archives. Instead, I have not found in Luccaʼs medieval iconography references to the Veronica or to the related cycle of Pontius Pilate; and Veronica is not mentioned in Luccan liturgical calendars. In Lucca, the strong rooting of the worship of Volto Santo may have stopped the influx of the Roman Veronica. Lucca, in fact, while declaring its loyalty to the Church of Rome, already had its own Holy Face, perceived as the solid foundation of the city’s cultural and political identity.