quote:
Is the Turin Shroud really a self-portrait by Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci? 
He was the ultimate Renaissance man - studying anatomy, designing a rudimentary helicopter
and creating some of the most admired paintings of the age.
But could Leonardo da Vinci also have perpetrated history's greatest art forgery?
That's the suggestion of one expert, who claims that Leonardo was responsible for faking the Turin Shroud.
The relic has inspired generations of pilgrims who have flocked to see what they believe is the face of
the crucified Jesus.
But it has also provoked bitter controversy after scientists carbon-dated it to the Middle Ages.
Now an American artist has entered the fray, putting forward her own theory about its origin.
Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York,
claims that the image is a self-portrait of Leonardo, which was made using a crude photographic technique.
Using computer scans she found that the face on the Turin Shroud and a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci share
the same dimensions.
Miss Schwartz came to prominence in the 1980s when she made detailed measurements of the Mona Lisa and a
Leonardo self-portrait.
To her amazement, the two faces lined up perfectly, leading her to suggest that he used a self portrait as a model for
the painting.
Earlier this year she used the same technique to compare another Leonardo self-portrait with the Turin Shroud.
'It matched. I'm excited about this,' she said. 'There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote
about were used in creating this Shroud's face.'
According to a Channel Five documentary to be shown tonight, Leonardo scorched his facial features on to the
linen of the Shroud using a sculpture of his face and a photographic device called a 'camera obscura'.
He would have hung the shroud's fabric over a frame in a blacked- out room and coated it with a substance to make it
light-sensitive, just like photographic film.
When the sun's rays passed through a lens in one of the walls, Leonardo's 3D model would have been projected on to the
material, creating a permanent image.
According to the Channel Five documentary, da Vinci created a sculpture of his own head and 'scorched' his facial features
onto the linen using a primitive photographic device called a 'camera obscura'
According to the documentary, da Vinci 'scorched' his facial features onto the linen using a primitive photographic device
called a 'camera obscura'
Shroud researcher Lynn Picknett said: 'It is spooky, it is jaw-dropping.
'The faker of the shroud had to be a heretic. He had to have a grasp of anatomy and he had to have at his fingertips
a technology which would completely fool everyone until the 20th century.'
The programme points out that Leonardo was fascinated with optical equipment and his notebooks contain one of
the earliest drawings of a camera obscura.
Mrs Picknett added: 'If Leonardo could have known that 500 years after he died generations of pilgrims
are still crossing themselves over the image, I think he would have laughed quite a lot.'
Although the Turin Shroud remains a popular attraction, most people now concede it is a fake.
Radiocarbon dating in 1988 showed the cloth was made between 1260 and 1390. However,
the image itself has not been carbon dated.
But Professor John Jackson, director of the Turin Shroud Centre of Colorado, who believes the item dates from
the time of Jesus's crucifixion, dismissed the Leonardo hypothesis. 'It is based on some very poor scientific
and historical scholarship,' he said.
The earliest known record of the shroud appears on a commemorative medallion struck in the mid-14th century and
on display at the Cluny Museum Paris, he added.
'It clearly shows clerics holding up the shroud and is dated to around 100 years before Leonardo was born.
'There is no evidence whatsoever that Leonardo was involved in the shroud.'
The professor believes the radiocarbon dating of the shroud was wrong because the sample was contaminated.
Lindaland
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