From the woman let’s move to the cloth itself. The following is gonna be a repost.
The first record we have about the cloth dates from 1011, when Pope Sergius IV is said to have consecrated an altar to the relic in St. Peter’s Basilica, appointing a scribe as keeper of it. A canon of St. Peter’s named Petrus Mallius, writing in about 1160, speaks of the following (
, chaps. 25, 37):
The oratorium of the holy Mother of God, called the Veronica, in which are kept [apart from the crib relic]…the indubitable genuine sudarium of Christ
ubi sine dubio est sudarium], the cloth into which he pressed his most holy face before his Passion, when his sweat ran in drops of blood to the earth. … Before the Veronica ten lamps burn day and night.
In this case, Petrus identifies the ‘sudarium’ (as he calls it) as being a cloth in which Jesus wiped His face when He sweated blood in Gethsemane. He does not describe any image on the cloth, nor does he name any woman in connection with the relic.
Firm recording of the Veronica only begins in 1199 when two pilgrims, the Norman-Welsh
Gerald de Barri and
Gervase of Tilbury made two accounts at different times of a visit to Rome which made direct reference to the cloth’s existence. Interestingly enough, they each give somewhat different stories as to the cloth’s origin. This is what Gervase says (
Otia imperialia 3.89):
And there are images of the countenance
vultus] of the Lord, like the Veronica, which is said to have come to Rome with a certain Veronica, an unknown woman. But we have proved from very ancient texts that in truth she was Martha … who was cured of a twelve-year issue of blood by touching the hem of the Lord’s robe. We know from old tradition that she possessed a likeness of the Lord’s face painted on a panel
in tabula pictam habuisse Dominici vultus effigiem]. Emperor Tiberius sent his friend Volusian to Jerusalem to find about the mirables of Christ, by whom he wanted his illness cured [whereupon Volusian seized the image from Martha]. … Tiberius is said to have been cured at his first sight of the Veronica painting. … It is therefore the Veronica, the authentic painting, which shows the likeness of the head and shoulders of the Lord in the flesh
pictura Domini vera secundum carnem representans efficiem a pectore superius] and is kept at St. Peter’s, on the right of the entrance.
We note that in Gervase’s account, ‘Veronica’ is identified with the woman healed of the issue of blood, who in turn Gervase names ‘Martha’ (is there an identification with Martha, sister of Mary of Bethany here?). He is also the first to say that there was an image of a face on the Veronica (which is here purported to be a panel), although he doesn’t seem to think that it was miraculously-formed. Gervase repeatedly calls it a ‘painting’, albeit one which is painted from life. Immediately after this Gervase goes on to talk about other images of Jesus found
at the Lateran and
at Lucca.
There is also another copy
effigies] of the Lord’s face, also painted on a panel
in tabulae aeque depicta] in the chapel of S. Lorenzo in the Lateran palace. Pope Alexander III (1159-81) had it covered with several layers of silk cloth
multiplici panno serico operuit] becaused it caused mortal fear in the onlooker. And an eyewitness reports the following: if one looks closely at the Lord’s face, which was so badly damaged by a Jew in the Lateran palace, near the chapel of S. Lorenzo, that blood flowed from the wound and covered the right side, one notices that it resembles the Veronica in St. Peter’s as well as the painting that is found in the chapel itself, and the
Volto Santo in Lucca.
