The photographers who started it
Secondo Pia 1855 to 1941
Lawyer, amateur photographer, Turin. Photographed the Shroud on 28 May 1898 and found the face on the negative. Accused of trickery; vindicated in 1931. His own words on the moment in the darkroom: "I saw for the first time the Holy Face appear." Pia
Giuseppe Enrie 1886 to 1961
Professional photographer. Rephotographed the cloth in 1931 on large glass plates with professional lighting, in Pia's presence. His photographs are the ones that went through the VP-8 in 1976 and the ones most reproduced since. Chronology
The team of 1978
John Jackson
Air Force physicist, co-founder of the project, one of the two who saw the VP-8 relief in 1976. A believer who said he spent most of his time trying to disprove hypotheses he and his colleagues thought up. Later founded the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado. Roster Chronology
Eric Jumper
Air Force engineer, Jackson's partner in the 1976 discovery and in organizing the team. Roster
Raymond Rogers 1927 to 2005
Thermal chemist at Los Alamos. The team's enforcer of skepticism, who said he had "no pony in the horse race." Took the thirty-two tape samples. In 2005, after first setting out to defend the 1988 date, he published the paper arguing the dated corner was a repair, and died seven weeks later. Rogers 2005 Rogers wiki
John Heller 1921 to 1995
Biophysicist. With Alan Adler, did the chemistry that found blood and found no pigment. Wrote Report on the Shroud of Turin (1983). On himself at the start: "I started out very arrogant." Heller and Adler Heller obit
Alan Adler 1931 to 2000
Blood chemist, Jewish. With Heller, demolished the paint theory to their own satisfaction. Never claimed the cloth was authentic, and would only say the blood was consistent with a primate's. Heller and Adler Adler obit Kearse
Barrie Schwortz 1946 to 2024
Documenting photographer, Jewish. Unconvinced for about twenty years, until Adler's bilirubin chemistry, he said, was "the last piece of the jigsaw." Founded shroud.com in 1996 and kept the project's record public for the rest of his life. Schwortz memoriam
Vernon Miller
Scientific photographer, Brooks Institute. Made the standard visible-light and ultraviolet photographs of 1978. Miller and Pellicori
Samuel Pellicori
Optical physicist. Ultraviolet fluorescence and spectroscopy. Miller and Pellicori
Robert Bucklin 1916 to 2001
Forensic pathologist, about 25,000 autopsies. Wrote the "autopsy" of the man of the Shroud. "Judicial homicide." Bucklin
Don Lynn
Jet Propulsion Laboratory image processing (Viking, Voyager). Roster
Don Devan
Designed the examination table. Schwortz 1978
Tom D'Muhala
President of the project. "I couldn't afford the luxury of opinion." D'Muhala
Kenneth Stevenson
The project's spokesman, whose faith-forward books after 1978 strained the team's public neutrality. Roster
Thirty-three names were on the roster. Twenty-six went to Turin. The full list is at Roster.
The Italians
Anastasio Ballestrero 1913 to 1998
Archbishop of Turin from 1977, Cardinal from 1979. Custodian of the cloth. Permitted the 1978 examination and the 1988 dating, and announced the medieval result himself on 13 October 1988, leaving its evaluation to science. SSI 1988 Hierarchy
Luigi Gonella 1930 to 2007
Physicist at the Turin Polytechnic, the Archbishop's scientific adviser and the team's liaison. Chose the 1988 sample site with Riggi on the morning of the cutting. Said afterward he had no scientific reason to think the test was inaccurate. Gonella obit
Giovanni Riggi 1935 to 2008
Microanalyst. Handled the cloth in 1978 and cut the radiocarbon sample in 1988. Kept trimmings from the cut in his safe. Chronology
Pierluigi Baima Bollone
Professor of forensic medicine, Turin. Worked in parallel with the team in 1978. Claimed blood group AB from thread samples in the early 1980s, a claim most researchers consider unreliable. Baima Bollone
Monsignor José Cottino born 1913
The Archbishop's representative at the examination, born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Helped lay the cloth on the table and observed throughout. Chronology
Umberto II 1904 to 1983
The last King of Italy, in exile in Portugal from 1946. Owner of the Shroud as head of the House of Savoy. Gave permission for 1978 and left the cloth to the Pope in his will, on condition it stay in Turin. Chronology
The clergy who made it possible
Father Peter Rinaldi died 1993
Salesian priest, born in Piedmont, long in the United States. The great diplomat of Shroud research, who opened doors in Turin for the Americans for decades and arranged Josie Woollam's return visit in 1978. Rinaldi
Father Adam Otterbein 1915 to 1998
Redemptorist, president of the Holy Shroud Guild in the United States, which supported the project and was its link to Turin. Roster
The skeptics
Walter McCrone 1916 to 2002
Microscopist, Chicago, famous for exposing the Vinland Map. Examined the 1978 tapes and reported red ochre and vermilion in a tempera binder; concluded the Shroud was a painting of about 1355. Never withdrew it. Left the project over it. McCrone
Joe Nickell
Investigator and author. Proposed in the late 1970s that the image could be made by rubbing pigment over a bas-relief, and has argued the medieval case in Skeptical Inquirer for forty years. Nickell
Luigi Garlaschelli
Chemist, University of Pavia. Produced a full-size reproduction in 2009 using a bas-relief and acid, funded by the Italian skeptics' group CICAP. Garlaschelli
Steven Schafersman, Antonio Lombatti, Andrea Nicolotti
Historians and scientists who have argued the medieval case from provenance and documents. Nicolotti's history of the Shroud (2020, in English) is the fullest skeptical account. Nicolotti
The pollen man
Max Frei-Sulzer 1913 to 1983
Zurich criminalist, founder of the Zurich police scientific service. Took tape-lift pollen samples from the cloth in 1973 and 1978 and reported species from the Near East, including Gundelia tournefortii. In 1983 he authenticated the forged Hitler diaries, weeks before the fraud broke, and died the same year. His pollen findings were never independently verified from his slides. Frei Frei bio
The witnesses of 1955
Josie Woollam and Leonard Cheshire 1945 to 1981; 1917 to 1992
See the Josie Woollam page. Foley
Last checked 2026-10-20.
