Shroud of Turin: Unrecorded engraving.

[Shroud of Turn]. Verissimo Ritratto del Sudario di N. S. Giesu Christo. Deus qui nobis in sancta Sÿndone qua corpus tuum sacratissimu[m] de Cruce depositu[m] a Ioseph involutu[m] fuit passionis… S.l: s.n., s.a. [17th or 18th century]. [9.4 x 5.8 cm], [1] f. engraving. Trimmed on the platemark on three sides, very minor toning. 
 
 
Unrecorded small devotional engraving depicting the Shroud of Turin displayed by two angels, beneath which is a prayer associated with the Feast of the Holy Shroud. The capital lettering above and below the Shroud stating that the image is a “most true likeness” of the relic is a feature clearly borrowed from the printmaker Giovanni Testa’s famed large-format representation of the 1578 ‘ostension’ of the Shroud.
 
Andrew Caspar describes Testa’s print very neatly: “The first ostension print was designed by Giovanni Testa on the occasion of the 1578 exhibition of the Shroud. It is probably the most important of the mass-produced images from this period … A tiny line of print running underneath the bottom edge of the image records the events portrayed: ‘On the 12th and 14th October in the year of the Lord 1578, in thanks for Carlo Borromeo, who with his family came from Milan to Turin dressed as a pilgrim, there was a public showing of the most holy Shroud.’ This print depicts the Shroud held aloft by Cardinal Borromeo and a certain Cardinal Ferrero, who are flanked by nine other bishops and archbishops, each of whom is labeled with his name inscribed above his head. However, while this print commemorates a specific historical event, this souvenir sheet operated primarily as a devotional image. The Shroud and its miraculous imprint of Christ’s body are unquestionably its primary focus, as indicated by its boldly printed title, ‘IL VERISSIMO RITRATTO DEL SANTISS.o SUDARIO DEL NOSTRO SALVATORE GIESU CHRISTO’ (The Most True Portrait of the Holy Shroud of Our Savior Jesus Christ). The majority of the printed sheet is taken up by the cloth and its bloody imprint …” (Andrew R. Casper, An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy, pp. 93-4).
 
Testa’s print was a deluxe production, while the little engraving here was designed as a souvenir/amulet to be kept on one’s person. 
 
 
* Andrew R. Casper, An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy; Clelia Arnaldi di Balme, ed., La Sindone e la sua imagine: Storia, arte e devozione, ex. cat., Torino, Palazzo Madama, 28 September 2018 to 21 January 2019, p. 24; Luigi Fossati, Sacra Sindone: Storia documentata di una secolare venerazione; Luigi Fossati, “The Souvenir Engraving of the 1578 Exposition,” Shroud Spectrum International, vol. 4, no 15 (1985), pp. 7-1.