Room Leonardo Ferri
Sindonic Studies by Lorenzo Ferri (1929-1975)

This room evokes the atmosphere of the sindonic studio of Ferri’s studio. Lorenzo Ferri, among the pioneers of Sindonology, studied the Holy Shroud for 46 years: from 1929, he dedicated himself to the reconstruction of the sindonic face, but soon he realized that it is impossible without the entire body reconstruction. The progression of studies can be seen in the subsequent reconstructions of the Face. In 1949-1950, he developed an experimental method to verify its accuracy before tackling the total reconstruction of the body. Invited to the 1st International Sindonological Congress in Rome in 1950, the sindonic face illuminated (1933) had a great success. While continuing with the new method the search for the Face, in 1951 he discovered the three-dimensional value of the imprints (anticipating by 26 years the NASA computer that produced a rudimentary bas-relief since it does not attempt to reconcile the two images, and nearly fifty years the three-dimensional model of the team from Bologna in 1999). He was the first not only to perceive the three-dimensional potential of the Holy Shroud of Turin but also to verify it. However, the plastic reconstruction was a gradual conquest in patiently restoring the original volume to the body under the shroud. Already in 1951, in the “Reconstruction of the body of the man of the Shroud” at 1/4, he first identified the position of the body in an S shape, and other hypotheses, such as the dislocated left shoulder connected with the left hand perforated in the metacarpus and not in the wrist; the presumptive height of about 1 meter and 85. He presented the results to Pope Pio XII in 1952, whom he met again in 1954. The sindonic image is not an orthogonal projection; his hypothesis is that it is a contact imprint. The frontal and dorsal images limit each other and one conditions the other, so there is only one position of the body in space where the two images coincide through the anatomical modeling, and that allows the complete adherence of the shroud. The image is continuous: in 1971 he found the connection at the top of the head, a lighter imprint. The imprints on the Shroud are not photographic images, although they are studied on the photographic negative by Giuseppe Ernie’s plates, – and Ferri since 1960. He established that one should not seek correspondence of measurements between the sindonic image and the body that impressed the image since it is necessary to first restore it to volume, and he molded the solid body on which the shroud could return to shape. As soon as the Plastic Reconstruction RP1 was completed in 1968; the primary objective, together with his son Leonardo, it was the global restitution of the body; the restorations of the Face became a corollary. He outlined the phases of the Deposition of the cross in 4 small sculptures. The last phase of the study of the Sindonic Passion concludes with the reconstruction of the Scourge with 5 and 6 elements, by Silvio Mizzon, with whom Ferri carried out a series of experimental tests to determine the effect of the blows. In 1972, he defined the dislocation of the left shoulder on a high relief Bust, which then became the “Bust of the emivolti”, with a method similar to those used by forensic medicine, to clean the face from the swellings. The course of the blows of the scourge reported on the reconstruction of 1968, and the experimental tests confirm the hypothesis that the man of the Shroud was scourged with his arms raised, culminating in the Plastic Reconstruction RP2 and the Flagellated in 1975. His son and co-worker Leonardo will continue the sindonic studies, promote exhibitions, he also held conferences in various cities and on television channels, he published articles and books.

He was tireless promoter of the realization of the Lorenzo Ferri Museum in Cave. This room also collects the original sketches for the Janua Coeli Door (1968-1970) of Santa Maria Assunta in Cave.