This icon/image/likeness of Christ is held at the Church of St Bartholomew of the Armenians in Genoa, Italy. It was given to the doge of Genoa in the 14th century by Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos. The outer frame has been dated to the 14th century, and the image itself is apparently made on a cloth that had subsequently been affixed to a piece of wood. In Genoa, it is sometimes called the “Santo Mandillo,” an obvious reference to the Greek mandylion. It is believed by some to be the actual image of Edessa, thereby contradicting the reports that the relic disappeared from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, or that it reappeared in Paris.
A linen cloth said to bear the image of Christ in the negative. It is claimed to be the cloth in which Christ was wrapped after his death. Measuring at 4.4 x 1.1 meters, the shroud features the front and back impression of a man’s body in a darker brown tone. The earliest mention of the shroud is in 1354.
Icon Showing the Image of Edessa (Mandylion)
The Image of Edessa or the Mandylion (see image top right), is a relic of a cloth onto which the face of Christ had been imprinted. Not to be confused with other, similar, relics (such as the Veronica veil or the Shroud of Turin), the story of the Mandylion was first recorded in the 4th century. The traditional story relates that ailing King Abgar of Edessa wrote to ask Jesus to come to Edessa to heal him. Jesus declined to visit, but instead sent a disciple and the Mandylion. The image eventually came to reside in the Imperial Treasury in Constantinople in the 10th century, and was lost in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. According to some reports, it perhaps reappeared among the relics at Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, however, this relic was also lost during the French Revolution.
Made in Paris circa 1390 for John, Duke of Berry, the reliquary is currently held in the collection of the British Museum. Made of gold, rock crystal, enamel, pearls, sapphires, and rubies, and decorated with intricately carved figures, is represents a type of luxury object popular in the French royal court in the early 15th century. The scenes on the reliquary show the Last Judgement and the seated Trinity and contains a single thorn from the Crown of Thorns. The reliquary passed through numerous hands, including the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and is also known due to its involvement in a forgery scandal in the 1860s.
Reliquary of the Crown of Thorns, 1862, designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris.
Given by Latin Emperor Baldwin II to King Louis IX of France, among others including the Image of Edessa, arrived in Paris in August 1239 for the sum of 135,000 livres. The Saint-Chapelle was built to house these (pawned) relics from Constantinople, and the Crown of Thorns was housed there until the French Revolution, when it was then moved to the Bibliothèque Nationale, and then in 1801 to Notre Dame. The relic itself is made up of a twisted circlet of Juncus balticus, a plant native to the north of Britain, the Baltics, and Scandinavia. Other relics purported to derive from the Crown of Thorns come from a different plant, Ziziphus spina-christi, which is native to Africa, and Southern and Western Asia. The current rock crystal reliquary is not original.
True Cross Relic, Santo Toribio de Liébana
The Roman Catholic Church holds that this section of the cross (vertical bar measuring 63.5 cm long; cross bar measuring 39.3 cm, with a thickness of 38 mm) is the largest relic of the True Cross. As with all other accepted relics of the True Cross, this section is said to come from the Cross found by Helena in the 4th century. According to tradition, it was brought to Spain my Saint Turibius of Astorga in the 5th century. The silver gilt cross into which the relic has been embedded was made in 1679. According to a study done in 1958, the relic is a Mediterranean Cyprus wood (Cupressus sempervirens), which is common in Israel, and could be more than 2,000 years old.
Interior of the Limburg Staurotheke. Staurotheke comes from the Greek meaning “container of the cross.” This reliquary was made in Constantinople in the 10th century. It currently resides in Limburg in Germany. The large cross at the center of the reliquary is not, in fact, the relic of the True Cross, but is, itself, a reliquary. Made out of sycamore, it was constructed before the outer container, and holds seven pieces of purported to be from the True Cross. The reliquary itself is sumptuously decorated in enamels, gemstones, pearls, and gold. Two Byzantine emperors, Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and his son Romanos II are mentioned in an inscription, which allows the cross portion of the reliquary to be dated to sometime between 945 and 959. Additional compartments contain other fragmentary relics: the swaddling clothes of the infant Jesus, the holy sponge, the Crown of Thorns, the sweet within which Jesus’ body was wrapped, the towel used to wash the feet of the Apostles at the Last Supper, the purple garment worn by Christ at his crucifixion, two different belts of the Virgin Mary, the Virgin’s maphorion, and hair from the head of John the Baptist. The outer section of the reliquary includes an inscription that names Basil Lekapenos, a eunuch and powerful figure in the imperial court, as the commissioner for the larger container, and was most likely made between 963 and 985.
The skull relic of Saint Helena of Constantinople
Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine is famous for her supposed discovery of many of the relics of the passion. Herself sainted after death, this relic of her skull is held at Trier Cathedral. The portrait bust shows her holding some of the relics of the passion. Usually kept closed, the reliquary is opened once a year on the date usually associated with her death, August 18.
Illustration from the Paris Gregory, fol. 440r
The “Paris Gregory” was made for Emperor Basil I between 879 and 883, commissioned by the Patriarch Photios I in Constantinople. It contains the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus. This illustration shows, at top “the dream of Constantine”, “the battle of the Milvian bridge” in the center panel, and “Helena discovering the True Cross” at the bottom. Full manuscript: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84522082/f94.planchecontact