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 a US 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. In the 1980s Miss Schwartz 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.”

A television documentary broadcast in Britain this week showed how Leonardo scorched his facial features on to the linen of the shroud using a sculpture of his face and an early photographic device called a camera obscura.




  1. SparkyOne says:

    I don’t know shit about art, but if Leonardo pulled this off it is the greatest trick since GoldmanSucks took over the FED.

  2. Mr. Glum says:

    She also proved that Michael and Janet Jackson were the same person 🙂

  3. King of Pap says:

    Probably. Ok. Great. Yes. Gee whiz. Now, how about the economy?

  4. James Hill says:

    Does this mean Leo had a Jesus complex, or Jesus had a Leo complex?

  5. James Hill Passes By Your Filter With Ease says:

    Does this mean Leo had a Jesus complex, or Jesus had a Leo complex?

  6. FRAGaLOT says:

    I tend to think that artists back then tend to make images the same way. So Leo and Jesus look the same since it was probably done by aitsts of the same ilk.. if not the same artists.

    Gotta remember back then most artists didn’t have the same techniques and tricks we have hundreds of years later.

  7. chuck says:

    I think she’s proven that when Da Vinci painted portraits, he tended to make the faces (and proportions) the same.

    Wow. What an amazing discovery.

    She calls herself a “graphic consultant”. If she had any artistic skills at all, she’d call herself an artist.

  8. Probeee says:

    Why your obsession with religion? Are you crying out for help? Give us some decent news or even a funny video not this junk. Go see a priest, rabbi or mullah to work out your belief issues.

  9. soundwash says:

    the nose works, but the mouth and eyes are all wrong.

    bedsides… WHO friggin CARES?

    why do people obsess over this nonsense?

    -s

  10. Charles says:

    Uh, wasn’t the shroud discovered in the 14th century?

  11. sirfelix says:

    Old news. New in UK but this info has already aired on either PBS or History Channel many month ago.
    Its a unique theory.

  12. sargasso says:

    #8. visit Italy. It’ll all make sense.

  13. JimR says:

    Probeee, why are you trying to silence discussions on the validity of religion? It’s a topic of interest for many… like any other. As with the Creationist Museum, if it offends you… don’t look. Perhaps you are frightened from the overwhelming evidence that the god of the Bible is fictitious and you don’t want to hear any more…la,la,la,la,la,la,la?

    Keep them coming Uncle Dave.

  14. King of Pap says:

    I thought Tom Hanks did it.

  15. t0llyb0ng says:

    Guy on the right looks vaguely like a non-crazified Charlie Manson.

    Wasn’t the Mona Lisa supposed to have portrayed what ‘Nardo would have looked like as a woman? Or the sister he never had? Didn’t hear any mention of that in the story & am somewhat disappointed. Time to superimpose the shroud image onto the Mona Lisa & see what comparison ye come up with—eh?

  16. LDA says:

    With no evidence whatsoever (except looking at it) I always thought it was produced by the great Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci as a ‘relic’ for the Vatican and that it was a self portrait (Renaissance sense of humour).

    I am only slightly more convinced by this story.

  17. Eideard says:

    K B and I agree the subject of the shroud is Bobby Fischer:

  18. Winston says:

    Come on, I painted this thing with a can of gray Krylon primer while I was Turin Italy.

  19. cheese says:

    I think I saw Leonardo Da Vinci on a burned piece of toast the other day…

  20. peter_m says:

    Even if it was authentic… Look around you, look at the world news and ask yourself, where is god today?

  21. jbellies says:

    The program in the UK was Revealed, Season 2, Episode 2, and it has been posted on Usenet (the entity, not the dotcom). The episode title is “Da Vinci Shroud”.

    Because the front and the back are different heights, and the head is too large for the body, they say that the technique involved the use of a camera obscura over several days. fwiw.

  22. Improbus says:

    @peter_m

    Where is god today? The same place he has always been … in the believers head. I would rather store something more useful in that head space … like recipes.

  23. soundwash says:

    #8. sargasso said,

    “visit Italy. It’ll all make sense”

    I have..

    I spent 2 months in ’85 driving my blazer
    from Le Havre, France, down through Italy and hopped a 1.5 day ferry ride to Greece on up to
    Mani to visit family.

    had many opportunities to see why the madness of religion has prevailed. the shear size and beauty (and numbers) of religious structures of all sorts must have awestruck the plebes of the day that were lucky enough to lay eyes on them.

    nonetheless, i still see religion, especially The Church, as the biggest money scandal and most harmful thought/concept to ever infect the minds of men & women alike.

    never mind the control aspect of it.

    even more insulting to humanity is that
    people are fooled by it today, more than
    ever

    if one needs to follow an “enlightened path”
    i think (in my somewhat uneducated view) the American Indians are the only humans on the planet that got spirituality right.

    so i still affirm my original statement:

    why do people still obsess over this nonsense?

    -s


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