Dalla Veronica in San Pietro al Volto Santo di Manoppello

The Veronica, a legendary texture with the image of Christ, perhaps from the Twelfth Century was preserved in the ancient Basilica of St. Peter. It was publicly exposed by the next century and who prayed in front of it obtained indulgence. In the first Jubilee it became one of the Mirabilia Urbis for the pilgrims that visited Rome and, in the next two hundred years, it was regarded as the most precious Christian relic. The precious cloth was stolen probably in the early years of the Seventeenth Century, during the construction of the St. Peter's Basilica facade and perhaps it reappeared in Manoppello (Pescara)at first in private hands and, since 1638, guarded in the local Capuchin monastery. The Holy Face, a rare cloth of fine linen with the image of Christ currently there venerated, may therefore be identified with the disappeared Veronica.