Veronica

VERONICA. - Name given, by metonymy, to the icon with the "Holy Face" of Christ, preserved among the major relics of the basilica of St. Peter's in the Vatican. V. (from Βερνίκη, Βερονίκη, Beronica, and not from vera eicon) is the name given by the Apocrypha of Pilate to the woman with the issue of blood healed by Jesus (Mt. 9:20-22; Mk. 5:25-34; Lk. 8:43-48), the owner of the "Holy Face," and the nickname of Martha, identified with the aforementioned woman with the issue of blood on the example of pseudo-Ambrose (PL 17, 721) and of others, as is read in the Otia imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury: "propter diutinam passionem fluxus carnalis in poplitis vena incurvata, unde Veronica dicta est" (III, 25: Dobschütz, op. cit. in bibl., p. 292*).

I. V. "HOLY FACE.". - The first hints of the presence of the V. in St. Peter's date from the close of the 10th century and the early years of the 11th. Even then the V. was kept in an aedicula with an altar, placed in front of the oratory of the Virgin built by John VII (705-707) at the beginning of the last small right nave of the Vatican Basilica. This oratory, destroyed in 1606 together with the ciborium for the V. erected by Celestine III in 1197, is called "a Veronice" by the monk Benedict of St. Andrew (v.) (Chronicon, ed. G. Zucchetti, Rome 1920, p. 41), and the abbot John in a document of 18 Feb. 1018 adds to his subscription the title of mansionarius "S. Marie in Beronica" (cf. L. Schiaparelli, Le carte antiche dell'Arch. cap. di S. Pietro in Vat., in Archiv. della R. Soc. Rom. di St. Patria, 24 [1901], pp. 450-53).

Stylistically, so far as one can judge from the medieval and modern copies still traceable, which differ greatly among themselves (it has not yet been possible to study the original directly), the V. links up with the icons reproducing the face of Christ, whose prototype is to be sought in the famous

μανδύλιον of Edessa, transported in 944 to Constantinople (v. ACHEROPITA). The V., however, in comparison with, for example, the Holy Face of Laon (v.) and the Holy Face of Genoa, transported in the 14th century from Constantinople and still preserved in S. Bartolomeo degli Armeni, has a more realistic and pathetic appearance (see also the Holy Faces reproduced in vols. II, pl. 32; IV, 971, Christ with the V. in the penultimate panel on the left [early 14th century]; VI, 1539; X, pl. 92; XI, pl. 42; XII, pl. 53).

Popular tradition naturally attributes another origin to the V. and found a way to explain its presence in Rome. The veil of the V. with the face of Christ is mentioned in antiquity by the group of the Apocrypha of Pilate (v.; 2nd, 4th-8th centuries). First of all the Acta Pilati call Bernice or Beronice (Greek text) or V. (Latin, Coptic and Syriac text) the woman with the issue of blood healed by Jesus (ch. VII: ed. C. v. Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1876, pp. 239, 356; P. Vannutelli, Actorum Pilati textus synoptici, Rome 1938, pp. 74-75; Hypomnemata Domini nostri seu Acta Pilati, Syriac version, ed. J. E. R. hmâni, Šarfah [Mount Lebanon] 1908, p. 18). Now the Vindicta Salvatoris places the pious V. in possession of the portrait of Christ which Velosian has seized by force to bring to Tiberius, who is healed of leprosy as soon as he sees and adores it. The V. abandons everything in Palestine and follows her treasure to Rome (Tischendorf, op. cit., pp. 478-85; cf. also the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, in St. Baluzius, Miscellanea edited by J. D. Mansi, IV, Lucca 1764, p. 56). The Mora Pilati specifies the manner in which the V. came into possession of the portrait of Christ: the pious woman wished to have the likeness of Christ portrayed; he, having learned of the matter, asks her for the veil on which the artist was to work and leaves his likeness imprinted on it. Volusian, less cruel than the Velosian of the Vindicta, has her come to Rome and there presents her to Tiberius, who is healed as soon as he sees the Holy Face (Tischendorf, op. cit., pp. 456-57).

Other versions of the manner in which Christ would have imprinted his face on the veil of the V. are found in the late Middle Ages. Toward the middle of the 12th century, Peter of Mallio (v.)

(from the so-called anostatica edited by Ch. Hülsen, Berlin 1955)
VERONICA - Ostension of the V. or Holy Face in St. Peter's. Engraving inserted in the Mirabilia Romae, Rome, from the presses of Stephan Planck, 20 Nov. 1489.

attests, on the faith of his elders, that the Savior impressed his face on the sudarium preserved in St. Peter's "when his sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground," that is, during the agony in the Garden of Olives (Descriptio Bas. Vaticanae, ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Cod. top. della città di Roma, III, Rome 1946, p. 420; cf. also Peter the Deacon of Montecassino, cited in Dobschütz, p. 283). From the 14th century onward, through the influence of Roger of Argenteuil (ca. 1300, Bible en françois or Storia sacra: Dobschütz, p. 304), and above all of the great French Passion Plays of the 15th century (Mercadè, Grèban, Jean Michel) and of the pious Franciscan exercise of the Way of the Cross ([v.] VI Station; cf. D. Baldi, Enchiridion locorum sanctorum, Jerusalem 1935, pp. 762, 764-65, 769, 779, 780-81), there began to spread the opinion that the impression of the Holy Face of the V. had occurred during the ascent to Calvary, when a woman with a courageous and compassionate gesture wiped the face of the Savior, drenched in blood and sweat — a gesture which in art is in fact not depicted before the 14th century (cf. E. Mâle, L'art religieux de la fin du m. â. en France, 4th ed., Paris 1931, p. 64). Finally, the 3rd lesson of the II Nocturn of the feast of St. Veronica in the Ambrosian Breviary of 1513 explains how the Roman Church came into possession of the precious relic: the V. would have left it by testament to Pope St. Clement I. Moreover Grimaldi (cited in bibl., p. 6) specifies that the V. would have been brought to Rome in the year 34 (p. 2).

Needless to say, these accounts contain nothing historical. In any case, from the 12th century onward, everyone believed that the basilica of St. Peter's was in possession of the "pictura Domini vera," as Gervase of Tilbury defines it in 1210 in his Otia imperialia (III, 25, cited in Dobschütz, p. 292*). From that time indeed the V. was the object of great veneration. Benedict the Canon (Ordo, ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, op. cit., p. 210) and Peter of Mallio (Descriptio, ed. cit., pp. 411, 425) treat of the incensings and the lights of the altar of the "Sudarium Christi," that is, of the V. Celestine III had a sumptuous ciborium erected for the V. and showed the Holy Face to King Philip Augustus in 1191 (cf. Ex gestis Henrici II et Richardi I, in MGH, Script., XXVII [1885], p. 131); Innocent III, on 3 Jan. 1208, decrees that the "effigies Christi" be carried in solemn procession, on the 1st Sunday after the Octave of the Epiphany, to the Hospital of S. Spirito (Potthast, 3260), a custom that lasted until the pontificate of Clement V (1305-14); Nicholas IV, on 25 Feb. 1289, renewing the indulgences for those who visited St. Peter's, expressly recalls the "pretiosissimi Vultus Domini imaginem, quam Veronicam fidelium vox communis appellat" (Potthast, 22890). Of the extraordinary enthusiasm there was for the V. in the late Middle Ages it suffices to recall a few testimonies from the 14th century: G. Villani for the Jubilee of 1300 (Hist. Fiorentine, VIII, 36, in RIS, XIII [1728], col. 367), Dante (Paradiso, XXXI, 103-109 [la V. nostra]; Vita Nova, 40, 1), Petrarch (letter to Philip of Vitry of 1350: Familiarium rerum lib., IX, 13: ed. V. Rossi, II, Florence 1934, p. 254, and the sonnet Movesi il vecchierel: Le rime, ed. G. Salvo Cozzo, Florence 1904, pp. 11-12) and M. Villani (Istorie, I, 56, in RIS, XIV [1729], col. 57) for the Jubilee of 1350. Pilgrims, in memory of their visit to Rome, wore on their headgear a square badge with the V. (see e.g. in G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, Florence 1952, coll. 515, 895). It is worth recalling that Cincio Romano (L. Bertalot, Cincius Romanus u. seine Briefe, in Quellen u. Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven u. Bibliotheken, 31 [1929-30], p. 224) complained in 1416 of the hunt for codices in the libraries of the City by those who prepared such badges, called by others "pictores veronicarum". Among the medieval prose works in honor of the Holy Face (cf. U. Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum, VI, Brussels 1920, p. 33, index, s. v. Facies Christi), the best known were the Ave facies praeclara of the time of Innocent IV (1243-1254) and above all the Salve sancta facies, attributed to John XXII (1316-34), who is said to have granted 10,000 days of indulgence to anyone who recited it while gazing at the V. (Grimaldi, p. 121). The Mirabilia Romae (manuscript or printed, cited here from the edition of Rome from the press of Stephan Planck, 11 Jan. 1499, copy in the Vatican Library) even recall that those present at the showing of the V. could gain 3,000 years of indulgence if Romans, 6,000 if from the surrounding area, 12,000 if coming from farther away "et tot quadragenas et remissionem tertie partis omnium peccatorum".

Was the V. destroyed during the sack of Rome, as two letters to the Duchess of Urbino from a certain messer Urbano, written from Orvieto and from Nepi on 14 and 21 May 1527 (M. Sanuto, I Diarii, XLV, Venice 1896, coll. 133, 192) and the letter of Card. Salviati of 8 June 1527 (Pastor, IV, II, p. 725) would suggest? It seems not, since the account of a soldier of Fronsberg says that the V. was not found by the soldiery (cf. E. Rodocanachi, Rome au temps de Jules II et de Léon X, Paris 1912, p. 432). Moreover the ancient rite of showing it to the Pope when he celebrated pontifically in St. Peter's on Easter day was observed after the sack of Rome, in 1533, 1535 and 1536, as appears from the Diari of Blasio de Martinelli (cod. Vat. lat. 12277, fols. 182, 239, 248). Furthermore Alfarano in 1582 (De bas. Vat. antiquis. et nova structura, ed. M. Cerrati, Rome 1914, pp. 107, 194, altar no. 115), and Grimaldi in 1618 (p. 174) speak of the V. as a relic present in the Basilica.

The V. was moved to the present tribune of the dome on 21 May 1606 (Grimaldi, pp. 210-14) and is enclosed in three silver cases protected by a crystal and a veil or "crivellotto". The features of the Holy Face can, it seems, be distinguished very little. From the pontificate of Paul V and especially of Urban VIII it is forbidden to make a copy of it; indeed Urban VIII ordered, in 1629, that all copies of the V. be burned. Among the copies not destroyed is to be remembered the one still preserved in the church of the Gesù, portrayed from the original with the permission of Gregory XV (1621-23).

The V. is shown to the faithful from the height of the tribune on the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, on the last 4 days of Holy Week, at Easter when the pope celebrates in St. Peter's, on Easter Monday, on Whit Monday, on 22 Feb., 3 May, 18 Nov. and on other extraordinary occasions (cf. X. Barbier de Montault, cit. in bibl., II, pp. 377, 393-94).

II. CULT PAID TO THE V. "PERSON"

The V., supposed person, had here and there a cult on 4 Feb. (St. Charles Borromeo suppressed this feast, which appeared in the Ambrosian Breviary [1513] and Missal [1560]), 26 Feb., 25 March. At St. Peter's it was believed that her body was possessed (cf. Alfarano, op. cit., pp. 108, 194). In France, she was considered, fantastically, together with her husband Zacchaeus the publican (identified with St. Amator, Amadour), the apostle of the Médoc, and her tomb was pointed out at Soulae in the diocese of Bordeaux. In Paris, St. V. (Ste Venisse) was the patroness of the confraternity of laundresses and ironers, with its seat in S. Eustachio. She was invoked against visceral and head ailments and is the patroness of photographers. - See pl. CXXXIV.

A. Pietro Frutaz