Today, we’re exploring a centuries-old cold case: a linen cloth, almost four meters long, carrying the faint imprint of a man. Some see in it the burial shroud of Jesus, others a brilliantly executed medieval forgery. For centuries, it has stirred faith, skepticism, and curiosity in equal measure. Today, the Shroud of Turin remains one of the most studied, disputed, and fascinating objects in the world, perhaps not so much for what it proves as for the endless mystery it poses.

The documented story of the Shroud begins in fourteenth-century France, in the small town of Lirey, where it was displayed by a knight named Geoffroi de Charny. Almost immediately, its authenticity was questioned: in 1389, the Bishop of Troyes denounced it as a painting and called it a fraud. By the late fifteenth century, the relic had passed into the hands of the powerful House of Savoy, which eventually transferred it to Turin, where it has remained ever since, in the city’s cathedral.