Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Leonard da Vinci Fooling Us All?

In How Leonard da Vinci Fooled History we learn that he secretly invented photography and then created a gigantic camera obscura, discovered how to make film out of linen, how to develop the picture and fix it. He was a genius, after all, they remind us. He understood the camera obscura (as had many educated people in Alhazen’s day and since). He had experimented with chemistry (as had many educated people). He might have had a motive. The authors on their website tell us he was, “[a] known joker, conjuror and illusionist, and a Church-hating heretic.”

A big problem for Picknett and Prince was the fact that Leonardo was born a century after the shroud was exhibited in Lirey. It was therefore necessary that he have an opportunity to replace that shroud with the one of his own making. He might have been welcome at the Savoy family palace. After all they had one of his drawings. “he had the means, opportunity and motive to create this extraordinary work.” Not only did he do all these things, dabbing on blood in all the right places, he replaced the head of the crucifixion model with a photograph of his own head. Picknett and Prince figured this out by comparing the head to a drawing of Leonardo and found the eyes and the nose and the mouth were all in the same place.