Seite - 59 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/01

Besançon from Palestine29 and, further, on several miracles worked by the relic and perceived to be, in their own right, proofs of its importance and testimo- nies of an individually and collectively lived faith.30 Various subsequent chapters were concerned with the shroud of Turin, its travels, history and the miracles it worked. There followed a few chapters on other famous textile relics. In the last part of De linteis sepulchralibus, Chifflet offered the readers a detailed com- parison of the shrouds of Turin and Besançon. He wrote that with regard to the shroud in Turin his discussion was based only on books, images and archival ma- terial. His description of the Besançon cloth, however, was extremely precise not only because he saw it regularly, twice a year, during its public ostentions, but also because he had been allowed, in the spring of 1623, to examine the precious textile alone, for three hours, in Saint-Etienne. A painter accompany- ing him for this purpose had made an image of the shroud that measured one foot.31 Chifflet here highlighted the importance of autopsy, of direct observa- tion, a characteristic tenet of antiquarian erudition. On the ground of the exper- tise he had acquired, the author, systematically using the first person, offered his readers rich information about the material object that was at the center of his disquisition, always comparing it with the Turin shroud: the color and the exact measurements of the linen and of the figure, the symmetry of the body, the position of the arms and of the wounds, and the loin cloth – visible on the Turin cloth, which had enveloped the body of Jesus after the deposition from the cross, but absent from the Besançon linen, which had been used after the washing and anointing of the naked body. It is in this context, in chapter 32, that probably the most remarkable illustration of Chifflet’s tract is presented, an engraving showing the Turin and the Besançon shrouds together (fig. 4). This was the first visual rendering of the linen of Besançon in a print medium. The engraving of the two cloths is the only one not integrated into the text. A folding plate of horizontal format, the size of a double page, it is significantly larger than any other illustration in the tract. The Turin shroud, front and back, takes up the upper part of the plate, the two sides of the body mirroring each 29 In this context, Chifflet referred to the cover, carved in ivory, of a very old copy of the Gospels in the local church of Saint-Jean and illustrated it (Chifflet 1624, 61–62). In chapter 6 the author had already raised the question of the historic provenance for his shroud, arguing that it might have been men- tioned in early sources such as the Venerable Bede. 30 On the cult devoted to the shroud of Besançon cf. Spinelli-Flesch 2004. 31 Chifflet 1624, 185: “In Vesontina autem ut essem accuratissimus, effecit, qua frequens illus aspectus, bis in anno, cum publice explicari solet; qua spectatissimorum insignis Capituli Metropolitani Canonico- rum singularis humanitas, de quorum decreto, adorandum Sudarium, tertia Iunij huius anni M. DC. XXIII. septima die quam populo exhibitum fuerat, a senis ex eorum coetu linteatis, in id muneris delectis, multa circum ardente face depositum est, ac mihi uni, arbitro dum taxat pictore, in minore Basilicae S. Stephani Sacrario propositum, tres ipsas horas, ut qualibet sacrae iconis mensuras caperem, eiusque depingi curarem expressissimam, quoad fieri posset, imaginem, pedali longitudine.” Between Erudition and Faith | 59www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1