Holy Faces, Secret Places [antikvár]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Books often have strange beginnings, and this one is no exception. Although I have long had an almost indefinable curiosity about supposed 'holy faces' on cloth, the idea partly came into being as a result of a heated discussion between myself and an Australian publisher-writer. Rex Morgan MBE, on the subject of the English artist Thomas Heaphy the Younger, who claimed to have gained direct access to, and actually sketched, the Veronica and other 'holy faces' back in the mid-nineteenth century. While Morgan accepted Heaphy at face value, I had long had serious doubts about him, and the only way of settling the difference seemed to be by retracing Heaphy's steps, and trying to gain the same access that he claimed to have gained. Others, notably including Episcopalian priest the Revd Kim Dreisbach of Atlanta, Georgia, encouraged the same idea, and with the enthusiastic backing of William Barry and Theresa D 'Orsogna of my publishers Doubleday, the project was born. In the event, the book became one of the most demanding I have ever undertaken, and would not have been possible without the generous assistance of individuals from many countries across the world. For direct help with background research I have been particularly grateful to the following: in Rome, Mario Fusco (expediting the obtaining of a microfilm of the Grimaldi manuscript); Professor Gino Zaninotto (correspondence on the Gregory and Regula Sancti Spiritus manuscripts); Professor