Who is the female figure of Veronica, said to have made her way through the soldiers escorting Jesus and, with a veil, wiped the blood and sweat from the face of Christ the Lord? The face of Jesus is said to have remained imprinted on that cloth.
One Figure, Many Mysteries
The famous figure of Veronica, who appears at the sixth Station of the Cross, is shrouded in great mystery. Her name is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels; rather, it appears in the apocryphal Gospels and in historical and devotional documents from the seventh century onward.
One of the first mysteries concerns the name Veronica, which means “true icon,” that is, “true image,” believed not to have been painted by human hands. The reference is precisely to the Veil of Veronica.
The Healing of Emperor Tiberius
Another mystery concerns an episode found in an ancient tradition. It is said that one day the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who had been stricken with a serious illness, ordered Volusianus, his messenger, to go to Palestine, where he had heard of a healer named Jesus.
Volusianus arrived there too late, when Jesus had already been crucified, but he did not want to return to Rome without bringing back at least one relic. While searching for his disciples, he met a woman named Veronica, who told him that she had known Jesus and recounted a miraculous event. The woman then decided to accompany the messenger, bringing her veil with her. When the Emperor saw the precious relic, he was healed instantly.
An inscription on the remains of a casket preserved in the Pantheon still bears witness to Veronica’s journey and to the arrival in Rome of what is described here as the “shroud of Jesus Christ.”
Where is the Veil of Veronica now? This is another mystery.
The inscription on the Pantheon casket attests that the veil arrived in Rome during the time of Tiberius, as can also be inferred from the tradition we have recounted concerning Volusianus.
Later, Pope Urban VIII had the relic transferred to one of the four chapels in the pillars supporting the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, where the most precious relics are kept.
Another legend tells us that the veil is in Manoppello (Pescara), where, in 1506, a pilgrim arrived carrying a panel and claiming that the image imprinted on it was the holy face of Christ. After handing the panel to the physician Giacomo Antonio Leonelli, the pilgrim mysteriously disappeared.
Tests conducted on the relic show that there is neither paint nor pigment on the fabric, so it is impossible to explain how the image was imprinted on it. Moreover, the dimensions of the face of Manoppello coincide with those of the Holy Shroud.
Many people maintain that the Holy Face of Manoppello is the original.
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