In May 1898, photographer Secondo Pia developed a glass plate and watched the faint smudges on a 4.4-meter linen cloth resolve into a detailed negative image of a man. This episode traces the Shroud of Turin from its first documented appearance in the 1350s with a French knight in Lirey, through the 1389 bishop's memo declaring it a painting, the papal ruling requiring it to be announced as a representation, its adoption by the House of Savoy, the 1532 fire that burned symmetrical holes through the folded cloth, and its arrival in Turin.

It then examines the science: the 1978 STURP tape samples and Walter McCrone's identification of red ochre and vermilion in gelatin, the counterargument from Heller and Adler about iron from flax retting, the 1988 radiocarbon dating by three labs to between 1260 and 1390, the four-shaft treadle loom require ...