Rejoinder of Ian Wilson to Andrea Nicolotti's "Letter to the Editor"

Rejoinder of Ian Wilson to Andrea Nicolotti's "Letter to the Editor" Ian Wilson (bio) Dear Editor, In response to Dr. Nicolotti's so lengthy protests at my critical review of his book (Letters to the Editor, CHR vol 110, 1, pp.102–10), I can assure him that any "animosity" on my part is non-existent, as should have been evident from my acknowledging his one-time help and praising some of his chapters. In fact Dr. Nicolotti has helpfully confirmed for me what I had hitherto merely suspected, that though Turin is his workplace he has never ever examined the Shroud in close-up, making it truly astonishing (and troubling?), that he can have made such a career of arguing for it being a medieval fake. Though he claims that "it is well known such examination is impossible," I still find it difficult to believe that as a Turin University history professor he could not have gained some behind-the-scenes access, particularly when the cloth no longer needs unwrapping and was shown publicly both in 2010 as 2015. Likewise, he claims it to be impossible to publish high resolution digital photographs of the Shroud, again blaming archdiocesan intransigence, which makes it very strange that I was able to do so, specifically with archdiocesan permission, for my last book on the subject published in 2010. Of the cloth's imagery's properties when viewed in negative, Dr. Nicolotti claims it to be "widely accepted that there is nothing remarkable about these." Though he cites in support his own pages 278–82, I found nothing in these conveying any such groundswell of scholarly opinion. Today the scholarly world largely ignores the Shroud not because of any better understanding of its alleged fakery, but because the 1988 carbon dating dated it to the Middle Ages, ostensibly "conclusively." Rejecting the numerous internationally respected medical specialists whom I quoted as supporting the Shroud imagery's convincingness (for me End Page 397 hugely important for the pro-authenticity argument), Dr. Nicolotti cites Dr. Michael M. Baden as a dissident. Besides Dr. Baden never having published anything supporting this opinion; after his lasting only one year as New York's chief medical examiner, he was fired for "sloppy record keeping, poor judgment, and a lack of cooperation," the Washington Post pointedly adjudging him "a headline seeking physician as opposed to a legitimate source of information."1 Dr. Nicolotti could hardly have chosen a more unsuitable counter-authority. In similar vein Dr. Nicolotti sweeps aside as "false" the gently pro-authenticity arguments of Dr. Mechthild Flury Lemberg—a Switzerland-based expert on historical fabrics who spent weeks working "hands-on" on the Shroud for conservation purposes—again citing instead his own published findings. As was pointed out to me years ago by British textile specialist Sheila Landi, even the most experienced textile expert needs to examine a piece of fabric directly to be able to talk of it authoritatively, furthermore such a huge proportion of ancient textiles have been lost to us that it behoves no one to be too sweeping in their judgment. Being merely a historian just as I am, Dr. Nicolotti's over-weening confidence hardly becomes him. Given that Dr. Nicolotti does not allow for the Shroud being a truly enigmatic object deserving sympathetic historical consideration, trying further to answer his so lengthy diatribe is pointless, even had space constraints allowed me, which they do not. As mentioned in my review, I am preparing a book which will substantially revise my previous understanding of the Shroud's history from the late twelfth century onward. This is intended to satisfy some of the genuinely valuable criticisms made by Professors Averil Cameron and Malcolm Barber concerning my 1978 book's findings, and Dr. Nicolotti can be assured that his points concerning the Edessan Mandylion, the Knights Templar, and the Charny family will be fully addressed likewise. In the meantime, I can only protest at his repeatedly labelling me as a "sindonologist," when I have never described myself as such, and positively disown it, as my book will make clear. Though "polemicist' occurs to me as a counter-label, I respectfully refrain from using...