Presentation   em português

Dear friends,

Imagens em Foco has, since its beginning, been committed to fostering dialogue across different fields of knowledge, especially when exploring objects whose complexity surpasses disciplinary boundaries. The Shroud of Turin is arguably the most compelling example of this challenge: an artifact that requires integrating methods, languages, and perspectives to understand—at least partially—its historical, scientific, and symbolic significance.

This special edition features researchers of recognized international standing, whose studies—diverse in scope yet complementary in approach—highlight the maturity and vitality of contemporary research on the Shroud. By combining contributions from physics, archaeology, history, forensic sciences, iconography, theology, psychology, and emerging technologies, this volume reflects the current state of an interdisciplinary field.

Our goal in organizing this issue was not to provide definitive answers but to offer a robust, critical, and diverse overview that can enhance the debate and inspire new research directions. The complexity of the Shroud continues to challenge both scientific rigor and interpretive sensitivity; for this reason, it remains a privileged subject for studying image, materiality, and human experience in the face of mystery.

We thank the authors who contributed their work and the editorial team that made this publication possible. May this special issue serve as a reference and inspiration for researchers, professors, and readers dedicated to understanding one of the most unique and challenging artifacts in history.

The Shroud of Turin remains one of the greatest mysteries in history—an object that defies classification and both pushes and exceeds the boundaries of science, philosophy, iconography, history, and spirituality. Its image, both silent and expressive, continues to attract researchers from many fields, making it perhaps the most studied artifact in the world.

This special edition of Imagens em Foco brings together, in a groundbreaking way, some of the most respected international experts on the Shroud, offering the academic community and general readers a deeply interdisciplinary, rigorous, and innovative overview. The diverse methodologies presented here reveal not only the complexity of the object but also its unique ability to inspire complementary approaches—scientific, historical, philosophical, technological, and spiritual.

1. THE IMAGE AS EVENT: ICONOPHOTOLOGY, LIGHT, AND PRESENCE

Opening this volume, Jack Brandão and the essay The Shroud of Turin and the Dialectic of Light offers an iconophotological interpretation that places the Shroud within a truly unique category of images: neither painting, nor photograph, nor traditional icon, but a luminous epiphany—an inscription emerging between presence and absence, perceptible only through the tense interplay between the visible and the invisible. Here, the image does not depict: it occurs.

2. THE SCIENTIFIC DEBATE: DATING, RADIATION, AND ANOMALIES

William Meacham in Shroud C14: What Needs to Be Done,  demonstrates the methodological shortcomings of the 1988 sampling with archaeological accuracy, discusses contamination hypotheses and statistical limitations — a vital study for understanding the C14 crisis. Sandro Aguiar Costa in A Comprehensive Rebuttal to the 1988 Radiocarbon Dating, provides the most comprehensive modern synthesis of the flaws in medieval dating, integrating statistical analyses, potential contamination, re-examinations of raw data, and, especially, the recent WAXS results indicating a first-century date. In Hypothesis to Explain the Image Formation, Robert Rucker proposes a physical model capable of explaining both the formation of the image and its superficial qualities, as well as the seemingly youthful dating: a vertically collimated radiation burst involving proton and neutron emission. This hypothesis combines nuclear science and phenomenology of image formation with mathematical rigor. Together, these three investigations reshape the contours of the worldwide scientific discussion on the Shroud.

3. ANATOMY, SUFFERING, AND CORPOREITY

In Explicación anatómica y forense..., the sculptor and professor Juan Manuel Miñarro synthesizes over twenty years of anatomical research, demonstrating that the morphological consistency of the Shroud’s body exceeds the limits of medieval artistic representation. His study reveals rigor mortis, trauma consistent with Roman flagellation, wrist crucifixion wounds, contusions, biphasic blood flows, and an extraordinary degree of anatomical plausibility.

4. HISTORY AND MEDIEVAL ARTIFACTS

Ian Wilson, in The Earliest Pilgrim Badges Produced for the Shroud of Turin, examines two of the earliest souvenirs linked to the Shroud, identifying the first ostensions in Lirey, marking the beginning of its devotional tradition and the circulation of its early iconography. His analysis suggests that the Shroud was already a significant object of veneration in the 14th century.

5. HISTORICAL, ICONOGRAPHIC, AND DEVOTIONAL TRAJECTORY

Emanuela Marinelli & Don Domenico Repice in Il Volto Nascosto,  analyze how the Shroud influenced Christian art, showing how the so-called Shroud Face significantly shaped Byzantine and Western iconography. Both studies highlight the historical and cultural significance of the Shroud’s presence. Vittorio Montis in Il Percorso della Sindone, investigates the liturgical and cultural journey of the relic, uncovering connections among the Shroud, sacred music, and public veneration over the centuries.

6. THE 3D IMAGE: THE DEPTH OF THE ENIGMA

In The Image of the Turin Shroud is Coded in Three Dimensions, Thierry Castex demonstrates, using modern digital techniques, that the image' intensity corresponds to actual distances between the body and the cloth—an attribute absent in traditional painting. Thus, the Shroud is more than just an image: it contains relief data.

7. FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Otangelo Grasso, in Reconstructing the Man of the Shroud, details a multi-year digital and three-dimensional reconstruction project that blends AI, 3D modeling, and metric overlays. This work enhances our visual understanding of the Shroud without claiming to replace the original.

8. SPIRITUALITY AND THE ENCOUNTER OF GAZES

Alessandro Malantrucco, in The Jesus’ Face on the Shroud, explores the Shroud’s face from spiritual, psychological, and existential perspectives. The image is seen not only as a historical record but as a presence that calls out—and appears to look back.

An unprecedented edition in Brazil by integrating scientific, anatomical, historical, iconographic, phenomenological, technological, and spiritual studies, this edition establishes a new standard in current Shroud research. Few recent publications have unified: – so many internationally recognized experts; – such disciplinary diversity; – such analytical depth; – and such an integrated view of the sindonic phenomenon. This volume is more than just a special edition; it is an editorial milestone, intended to serve as a lasting reference in Shroud studies. And, like the Shroud itself, it remains open to rigor, mystery, and reflection.

Academic regards,

Prof. Dr. Jack Brandão